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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of how many small firms and shops will benefit from reductions in business rates in (a) England and (b) Crawley in 2015-16.

The Chancellor announced at the 2014 Autumn Statement an extra £650 million of support for 2015-16 bills, bringing the total support of 2013 and 2014 Autumn Statement polices to £1.4 billion. This help includes:

• doubling small business rate relief for a further year. In England, this means an estimated 385,000 properties will pay no rates at all, while a further 190,000 properties will benefit from tapered relief.

• a 2% cap on the increase of the small business rates multiplier. This is a continuation of the 2% cap introduced in 2014-15 as part of Autumn Statement 2013 measures;

• increasing the temporary £1,000 discount for shops, pubs and restaurants with rateable values below £50,000 to £1,500 for 2015-16, benefitting an estimated 300,000 properties in England;

• extending the existing transitional relief scheme for two years for properties with a rateable value up to and including £50,000.

These policies are in addition to previous Autumn Statement measures that continue into 2015-16, including:

• a 50 per cent discount for 18 months to new occupants of vacant shops;

• allowing businesses to keep their small business rate relief for a year where they take on an additional property; and

• business rates relief for empty new builds.

Central Government also now funds 50% of any local discount granted.

Local authority level data is not yet available for the number of properties that will benefit from Autumn Statement 2014 measures in 2015-16. However, the attached table shows the number of hereditaments in 2014-15 that have benefitted from business rates measures extended in this year’s autumn statement.