Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

2. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to business rates announced in the autumn Budget 2025 on the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

6. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of tax changes on high street businesses.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

13. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of tax changes on high street businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I recently hosted a hospitality roundtable in North East Fife. In an area that boasts such attractions as St Andrews and the East Neuk, one would expect to find an industry in rude health, but that was not the case. Indeed, one business could not attend because it was taking difficult decisions in relation to the business that day. The Minister has outlined a number of things that are in the purview of the devolved Government, and I will be taking those up with the Scottish Government. As a Scottish MP and a Scot representing Scottish businesses, however, I am looking for things that the Government can do on a UK level. The Liberal Democrats have been proposing an emergency VAT cut for hospitality businesses for some time, so why will the Government not consider that?

[Dan Tomlinson]

Business rates are a devolved matter. The changes that we have announced and the support that we have put in will have consequentials for funding for the Scottish Government. VAT is a broad-based tax that raises a significant amount of revenue for the Treasury. That is important in ensuring that we can manage our public finances and bring in the revenue to be able to get borrowing down, which this Government are doing and previous Governments failed to do. When the Liberal Democrats last had the chance, their choice was to put up VAT rather than cut it.