Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 4 December 2025, to Question 95882, on Alcoholic Drinks: Excise Duties, for what reason CPI is used to calculate business rates.

The national business rates multipliers uprate by the previous September’s CPI figure every April.

Business rates make up a quarter of Local Authority core spending power and support critical local services, including child and adult social care. Indexing the business rates multipliers in between revaluations helps to maintain the real-terms value of this revenue to fund these services.