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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what discussions his Department has had with small businesses ahead of the introduction of proposed changes to business rate rateable values on the definition of a small business.

The rateable value threshold for a small property in the 2017 transitional relief scheme was increased from £25,500 to £28,000 in Greater London and from £18,000 to £20,000 elsewhere, compared to the 2010 scheme. This increase was in line with the overall effect of the business rates revaluation on rateable values, and helps to maintain the support the scheme provides to small businesses.

The Government announced this as part of the consultation on the 2017 transitional relief scheme. The Department regularly has discussions with representative bodies for the small business sector on a range of issues, including changes to the business rates system.

At Budget 2016, the Government announced that the threshold for Small Business Rate Relief Scheme would double from April 2017, from £6000 to £12,000. As a result of this change over 600,000 small businesses will pay no rates at all.