Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the potential value of unresolved business rate appeals that have been made on the grounds of material changes of circumstance due to the covid-19 outbreak for 2020-21.

The Government announced on 25 March that it intended to legislate so that market-wide economic changes to property values should be considered at general rates revaluations, and therefore would rule out COVID-19 related material change of circumstance (MCC) claims that could lead to appeals.

At that point, around 170,000 business rates assessments had claims made for MCCs (in England). Some businesses made multiple claims on the same property and this figure excludes those. No claims have progressed to formal appeal as yet (the claims are at the initial Check or Challenge stage of the process).

No cases have yet been settled by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and the value of any rating assessment reductions would depend on the facts of each individual property, and the value of any business rates bill reduction on any reliefs to which the ratepayer may be entitled.