Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Prescription of Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Regulations 2023
(10 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Prescription of Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Regulations 2023.
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, although these draft regulations may appear at first sight obscure and technical, they are essential to the smooth functioning of the business rates system for the financial year 2024-25 and beyond.
The regulations serve two main purposes. The first is to preserve the threshold for those businesses that pay rates by reference to the lower small business multiplier at a rateable value of below £51,000. This has been government policy since 2017 but, due to the passing of the Non-Domestic Rating Act 2023 in October, it must be reaffirmed here.
The second is to ensure that this threshold of £51,000 not only applies to occupied properties, as it has done previously, but extends to charities, unoccupied properties and those on the central list that are not subject to full relief. Moving these properties from the higher standard multiplier to the lower small business multiplier will place the entire business rates system on an even footing. It will also constitute a modest tax cut for those properties that will move to the small business multiplier for the first time, to the tune of around £5 million per year.
The Committee may find it helpful if I set out a quick reminder of how the business rates multiplier works. A multiplier is, in effect, a tax rate used to calculate business rates. There are two kinds of multipliers. The standard multiplier applies to businesses with a rateable value of £51,000 or above. The small business multiplier applies to businesses with a rateable value of less than £51,000. The relevant multiplier is multiplied by the yearly rental value of a property, known as the rateable value, to calculate its business rates bill before any reliefs are applied.
These regulations have been precipitated by the Non-Domestic Rating Act 2023, which implemented the reforms announced at the conclusion of the 2020 business rates review. As I am sure many noble Lords are aware, this important legislation introduced more frequent revaluations, bringing the revaluation cycle down from every five years to every three years to make the system fairer and more responsive. The Act also introduced a new improvement relief to incentivise businesses to invest in their properties; legislated for improved transparency in how business rates valuations are calculated; and introduced a number of administrative reforms to the business rates multiplier to streamline and improve the system.
This last point is most relevant here, as those reforms provide the Government with a power to set and alter in secondary legislation the thresholds for which properties are eligible for each multiplier. As these new reforms will come into force from the 2024-25 financial year, the Government must bring forward these regulations in order to maintain the threshold for which properties pay the multiplier at its existing level of £51,000 rateable value. If these regulations are not passed, the small business multiplier will instead apply only to businesses in receipt of small business rates relief. This would constitute a tax hike for hundreds of thousands of businesses whose properties have a rateable value of between £15,000 and £51,000.
The second purpose of these regulations is to bring unoccupied properties, charities and properties on the central list in line with occupied properties, by bringing properties with a rateable value of below £51,000 into the scope of the small business multiplier. The proposal to bring unoccupied properties and charities within the small business multiplier was initially made in the technical consultation following the business rates review. The Government committed to this change in the summary of responses to that document in March 2023. To maintain consistency across the business rates system, it was subsequently decided to bring properties on the central list—the centrally managed list of properties that span multiple local authority areas, such as utilities pipelines—within the scope of the small business multiplier.
The content of this instrument is therefore very simple. The instrument continues and extends existing government policy, applying the small business multiplier to properties with a rateable value of below £51,000 that are not subject to full relief. Properties valued at £51,000 and above that are not subject to full relief will pay business rates by reference to the standard multiplier.
For the majority of ratepayers, then, this statutory instrument merely preserves the status quo. Ratepayers are used to a £51,000 rateable value threshold for the small business multiplier, and this instrument maintains that threshold under the legislative reforms made by the Non-Domestic Rating Act 2023. The instrument promotes stability and predictability in the business rates system. For unoccupied properties, charities and properties on the central list with a rateable value of below £51,000, this instrument will provide a small tax cut, as these properties are brought into the scope of the small business multiplier. The regulations will make the multiplier more consistent and place all properties on a fair and level playing field. I beg to move.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful and brisk exposition, and I will not delay for mischief or malice these regulations that come to the Committee. It is the settled view of the usual channels that it should be so—and rightly so. I rise briefly in the traditional manner to ask the Minister questions, simply and briefly, to hold the Executive to account. So often the Grand Committee considers regulations of great importance to citizens but debate is so brief.
Paragraph 2.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum is welcome. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s estimate of the numbers of small businesses in England and Wales? Does the department have any idea of how many there may be?
Paragraph 12.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum baldly states that this is a “tax cut”. Surely the Minister who comes to this Committee with a tax cut should be congratulated. For the Minister arriving with a tax cut, it raises confidence when next she gives her expert and brisk introductory remarks.
On paragraph 14 of the Explanatory Memorandum, who will carry out monitoring and review? Shall it be civil servants, independent consultants or simply the Minister’s section in her department?
Under the heading “Consultation outcome”, paragraph 10 mentions small businesses. Has the Federation of Small Businesses—or the chambers of trade, for example —been involved in this consultation? Details might be available from the Minister or her officials.
Lastly, local government tells of its great problems concerning finance. Does the Minister know that local government throughout the nation hopes that, in the imminent Budget, the Chancellor will offer more money to hard-pressed local authorities in a time of austerity?
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction. I welcome strongly the decision to ensure, through this instrument, that charities and unoccupied properties will be eligible for the small business multiplier. It is also helpful that the Government have decided to extend the small business multiplier to central list properties below the £51,000 rateable value threshold.
Business rates are simply too high, particularly for small businesses. I recognise that there has been a freezing of the small business multiplier. At Third Reading of the Non-Domestic Rating Bill in October, I said that what is now the Act made some very welcome changes, particularly around more regular revaluations. However, business rates used to be around half the rental value of a property and they are now closer to 100%—they are almost equal. This financial burden is putting huge pressure on many businesses and impacting on our high streets, particularly our retail sector.
I want to ask the Minister this. We had assurances during the passage of the Non-Domestic Rating Bill that the legislation would be kept under review. Will the Government continue to keep under review the amount that small businesses have to pay? Even though there is a discount, at 49.9p in the pound, compared to other businesses, at 51.2p in the pound, small businesses need greater help today. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to say that the Government are well aware of the financial pressures that small businesses have and are alert to the need to ensure that those pressures, in the current economic context, do not get worse. Might the Government find ways to review the business rates system, which we debated at some length during the passing of the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, but also the level that is paid by many businesses which have been struggling?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. I would be grateful if she could provide further detail about the Government’s understanding of what constitutes an unoccupied property. The Government consulted on business rates avoidance and evasion in July last year, and in that consultation document they made it clear that they were concerned about the potential abuse of empty property relief by owners who use a brief period of apparent occupation to reset their properties’ eligibility for that relief. The consultation document stated:
“There is no statutory definition of what constitutes ‘occupation’ of a property, and minimal occupation possibly of no material benefit to the occupier, except as a method to avoid paying rates, may be sufficient to allow ratepayers access to a further rate-free period.”
As there is no statutory definition of what constitutes occupation of a property, I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what definition the Government are using in identifying unoccupied properties for the purpose of this SI. I would also be grateful if she could confirm when the Government are intending to set out their response to the business rates avoidance and evasion consultation, and when they will bring forward any actions they intend to take to combat avoidance and evasion within the business rates system.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Once again, I am grateful to noble Lords for sharing their thoughts in this short debate.
As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Jones, rightly held the Executive to account. I always appreciate his questions. He asked how many small businesses there are. There are hundreds of thousands of them. I can tell the noble Lord that 90% of properties come under the small business multiplier, so only 10% pay at the standard rate; of course, that covers hundreds of thousands of properties, some of which may be used by a single business. We must recognise that the small business multiplier is really important because it covers most properties. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, pointed out, it was frozen at the Autumn Statement because we recognise and share his concerns about the impact of business rates on our high streets, which we want to keep as vibrant as possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is right that this is a tax cut. Sadly, it is quite limited, but, nevertheless, we will take tax cuts wherever we can find them. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, it amounts to around £5 million and goes to charities. Charities get other reliefs as well, which is why the impact is probably smaller than one might otherwise think.
Monitoring and reviewing business rates is a really important area. The Valuation Office Agency is responsible for valuing non-domestic property for business rates purposes. As I mentioned, we have decided to reduce the revaluation period from five years to three years to make it a bit more flexible and agile. The agency is required by law to compile and maintain accurate rating lists for non-domestic properties in England; it must do this impartially and independently of central government. It follows international valuation standards and the RICS mandatory guidance on the appropriate method of valuation. Of course, the VOA remains happy to talk to ratepayers to ensure that it gets the number for the rateable value right.
It is also important to recognise that the VOA is undergoing a period of transformation. There are some opportunities to digitise business rates. There is also a positive opportunity to link business rates to the HMRC system, to make it much easier and so that there is better targeting and understanding of how the business rates system works with the tax data from businesses themselves. This reform programme is called the digitalisation of business rates, and it will be a major step forward in modernising the entire system.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, went on to ask what small businesses think of this and whether we have heard from them. I am pleased to be able to tell him that there was the 2023 business rates review consultation and the technical consultation. We heard from the Federation of Small Businesses and many other representative groups in those consultations; they provided us with valuable feedback on how we can make the business rates system more productive.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, mentioned the issue of some in local government feeling the pinch at the moment. The provisional local government finance settlement for 2024-25 has made an additional increase of 6.5% in councils’ core spending power. A consultation with the sector closed on 15 January and we are considering the responses. The final settlement will be confirmed in early February. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities always stands ready to speak to any council that has concerns about its ability to manage its finances or faces pressures that it has not planned for. We are aware that a small number of local authorities have recently suffered financial distress because of issues specific to them. As I say, we are keen to work with local authorities to ensure that they continue to deliver services for the public.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said that business rates are too high, although he gave credit to the Government, noting that we held the small business multiplier for 2024-25 in the Autumn Statement. That is a positive thing. There is an enormous number of reliefs available for different types of businesses— I was briefed on this—and it is worth making sure that businesses are aware of them. Noble Lords will be aware of the reliefs that we have been able to extend for hospitality, to ensure that our high streets remain vibrant places to go to and socialise. Indeed, there are plenty of others, such as the improvement relief. I think it is possibly quite complicated, but necessarily so, because it targets money to where we need it most.
The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, asked about unoccupied properties. Local authorities are responsible for administering business rates at a local level, and they would determine the occupation of the property. However, if there is any more information or guidance around that that I can provide him with, I will certainly write to him with an update on business rate evasion and avoidance.
Motion agreed.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Stansgate) (Lab)
It may be for the convenience of the Grand Committee that we adjourn now, as there is about to be a vote in the Chamber, and reconvene 10 minutes from the moment the Division Bells begin.