Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he or officials of his Department first consulted (a) local authorities and (b) software suppliers on the implementation timetable changes to business rates and business rates relief in 2017.

Following the Chancellor’s announcement of the Business Rates Relief Schemes at Spring Budget 2017, on 9 March the Department published a Business Rates Information Letter to local authorities. This provided information on each of the three schemes, including draft allocations for the discretionary relief scheme and guidance on the Supporting Small Business Scheme. On 10 March the Department began discussions with a group of local authorities and the main software suppliers to discuss the implementation of the schemes and system requirements.

The Department has continued to engage local authorities and software suppliers, encouraging authorities to speed up implementation and the technical guidance for the Supporting Small Business Scheme and Pubs Relief Scheme was published on the 20 June. On 14 September 2017, I made a Written Ministerial Statement, which set out the good progress made by some authorities and a commitment to publish a list of authorities that have rebilled across all three schemes.