Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

22. What steps his Department is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce sickness absences in the workplace.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

Sickness, and supporting those who are sick in the workplace, is an important focus for the Department, which is why we are consulting on occupational health and ensuring that more businesses take it up as something to offer their employees.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Seventeen million working days are lost every year because of negative workplace cultures and staff wellbeing. That is partly down to bullying, which is prevalent across many workplaces. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to consider workplace cultures, particularly bullying at work, and will he meet me to discuss my bullying and respect at work Bill, which would put a recourse into law?

[Mel Stride]

Like the hon. Lady, I and my ministerial colleagues take bullying in the workplace extremely seriously. There is no place for that in our country. I would be very happy for her to have a meeting with the relevant DWP Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

This morning I attended the York cost of living summit and heard about the impact that food poverty, heating poverty and housing poverty are having on my constituents. One issue is the rate at which the benefits cap is set. By 2027, it will not have been reviewed for 11 years, so will the Secretary of State make representations to the Chancellor to ensure that it is reviewed before 17 November?

[Mel Stride]

I am in the process of reviewing just that matter and many of the others that we have discussed, so we will have to wait, but it is one of the matters that is under review.

Business of the House

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am not going to stray too far into the comments made by the two candidates to be the next leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister, but my understanding is that both those individuals clearly recognise that it is better to have a deal, and that one of the reasons it is better to have a deal is to avoid the frictions at the border that would cause problems to car manufacturers and just-in-time elements of their production processes. As to how we might go forward, the hon. Gentleman is of course at liberty to propose this as a subject for debate, to request an urgent question on the matter or perhaps even to apply for an Adjournment debate, where he might have an opportunity to quiz the relevant Minister in some detail on the issues he has raised regarding Vauxhall Motors.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Families who adopt have specific support needs. Given that the all-party parliamentary group on adoption and permanence took evidence from over 1,600 people, including young people, about their specific needs, will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the future of the adoption support fund, which is due to end next year?

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for all her work on this very important issue, not least as the chair of the APPG for adoption and permanence. I believe that she may have put in for a Backbench Business debate on the particular issue that she has raised. If she has a moment to meet me briefly over a cup of tea, I will be very happy to have a chat with her further about the matter and to see whether we can prevail upon the good offices of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) to secure that debate for her.

Business of the House

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Agriculture Bill is there in draft. It is fit for purpose, and it will be coming back in due course.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The York Central development will see the wrong kind of housing built, which people in my community cannot afford. It will choke off economic opportunity and draw cars into the centre of our congested, gridlocked city. Can we have a debate on how public land must be used for the public good?

[Mel Stride]

I think that issue might be one for an Adjournment debate to give the hon. Lady an opportunity to discuss it with Ministers. She will know that, as I said earlier, we have made very significant progress in terms of house building. The number of homes built in the last year for which there are figures available is at the highest level for all but one of the past 31 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I certainly agree. These changes will boost our high streets, and the FSB is to be congratulated on Small Business Saturday. I shall be in Ramsgate with my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) speaking to some of his retailers about this. I extend a non-partisan invitation to Labour Members to join us: we will go up our high streets talking to retailers about reducing their rates, and they can talk about the tax increases that they have in store for them.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The very short-term measure to give some businesses relief was announced at the Budget, but why did not the Chancellor announce the real cause of escalating business rates—the investors on our high streets from overseas who are really exploiting the market?

[Mel Stride]

I am slightly disappointed by the approach taken by the hon. Lady, for whom I have great respect, in pouring cold water on a major fiscal move such as this to reduce high street rates by one third, which will benefit approximately 90% of smaller retailers in her constituency. That is a shot in the arm for our high street and a shot in the arm for British business.

Business Rates: Small Retail Businesses

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I say what a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair after the recess? It is also a pleasure to realise that I have an hour and 16 minutes in which to address my response to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), but I may cut it down just a little bit to please the House.

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the House tonight. It is entirely characteristic of him that such a debate is in his name, because throughout his parliamentary career he has been a strong advocate of business both across the country and, importantly, in his constituency. He was right to highlight in his opening remarks the sheer size and importance of our small business community—there are 5.7 million small businesses, a figure that he cited—and the recent growth that we have had under the coalition Government and this Government. He has worked closely with the British Independent Retailers Association on various thoughts and proposals, some of which he put forward this evening and to which I shall respond in a moment.

My hon. Friend is right that business rates are an important tax. When we consulted on business rates back in 2015 and considered the various alternatives, several different suggestions were made, such as turnover taxes, taxes on gross value added and so on. Inevitably, with every kind of measure or metric that one focused on, they had their own particular drawbacks and complexities and so on. The conclusion that was reached at the time was that business rates were a stable tax that is difficult to avoid because property is static by definition. Of course, as my hon. Friend also rightly pointed out, business rates raise around £25 billion a year, which is a significant contribution to our public services and funds, in turn, our doctors, nurses, policemen and policewomen and so on.

The Government recognise that business rates represent a high pressure on small businesses, particularly for high street retailers. Rates are a fixed cost that cannot be avoided, irrespective of whether a business is profitable or otherwise, which is why we have undertaken a series of important measures. In the 2016 Budget, we made 100% small business rate relief permanent, at that time increasing the threshold for the relief and taking 655,000 of the smallest businesses out of business rates altogether. We also increased the threshold for the standard multiplier, taking 250,000 properties, including most high street shops, out of the higher rate of business rates.

However, that is not all. Following the most recent property revaluation in 2017, we introduced a £3.6 billion transitional relief scheme to cap and phase in bill increases. Additionally, at spring Budget 2017, we announced an extra £435 million to support those businesses facing the steepest increases in bills, including £110 million to support 16,000 small businesses losing small business rate relief or rural rate relief to limit increases in their bills to the greater of £600 a year or the real-terms transitional relief cap for small businesses in each year. We also provided local authorities with £300 million of funding for discretionary relief to support individual cases in their local area.

In parallel to all that, we have taken significant steps to ensure the fairness of the business rates system as a whole. That is why, at spring Budget 2017, the Chancellor announced that we would reform the revaluation process to make it fairer. I am pleased to say that we have delivered on that by increasing the frequency of business rates revaluations from every five years to every three years, following the next revaluation. That is an important point in the context of what my hon. Friend said about the difference in the rates being paid by the out-of-town store and by retailers on the high street. If we can have more frequent revaluations, as rateable values on the high street perhaps fall, we can more quickly pass on the benefit of that within the system.

[Rachael Maskell]

Does the Minister recognise that inequality exists between property size and turnover and that online businesses do not have the same huge valuations as retailers on the high street? Therefore, there is a complete dissociation between the success of a business and its ability to pay under a rateable system, whether that system is based on turnover or profitability, as opposed to a system that is dependent on an external landlord and the rents that they are charging for their property.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady will probably be aware of the Chancellor’s speech at our recent party conference, in which he spoke quite strongly about the importance of a level playing field for online businesses that derive value in the United Kingdom and end up paying very little tax and about the international tax approach that we may look at taking unilaterally as a consequence. The most important thing overall is that the Government recognise that when it comes to high streets and the smaller retailers to which the hon. Lady refers, we should take measures to reduce the burden of rates, particularly among smaller businesses, in the way that I have described this evening. That makes bills fairer for everyone, as they more closely reflect the current rental values and relative changes in rents. To ensure that ratepayers benefit from this change at the earliest point, the spring statement 2018 included an announcement that the next revaluation would be brought forward by one year to 2021.

Before I address some of the specific points raised by my hon. Friend, it is worth highlighting that, at autumn budget 2017, we brought forward the planned switch in the indexation of business rates from RPI to CPI by two years. This switch is worth £2.3 billion over five years, and the move to CPI is worth £4.1 billion in total by 2023. So once more, the Government are making a significant investment to recognise the pressures that rates introduce.

My hon. Friend raised the specific issue—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Rachael Maskell

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As I have just identified, the Government have done a huge amount to reduce the burden of business rates. We recognise the important fact that these taxes need to be paid, irrespective of whether businesses are profitable or otherwise. That is why we have gone to such lengths, providing £9 billion of relief in 2016, including transitional relief for those facing the largest potential increases in business rates, and a further £2.3 billion by way of bringing forward by two years the change in the indexation of business rates from retail prices index to consumer prices index, saving businesses £2.3 billion over the next few years.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Business rates are really hitting businesses in York, particularly in the retail sector. This is having a huge impact on our city. On 8 March 2017, the Chancellor promised this House a complete review of business rates, yet we have only seen sticking plasters from the Government. When will that review begin?

[Mel Stride]

The business rates review is being undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.