Steel Industry
Debate between Gill Furniss and Tom Pursglove(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Gill Furniss
We have to look throughout Europe and find examples of best practice that we can adopt in this area of work, which is clearly important.
Secondly, there is the issue of business rates. By including plant and machinery in business rate calculations, we are not only at variance with but less competitive than France and Germany, where business rates are as much as 10 times less than ours. We are also creating a disincentive for manufacturers to increase productivity and are effectively taxing investment. Perhaps the best example is in Port Talbot, where Tata invested £185 million in a new blast furnace only to find £400,000 added to their business rates. Our current one-size-fits-all regime for business rates is a hangover from the days when manufacturing dominated our economy. That has not been the case for decades, and we need a tax regime that reflects that change.
Tom Pursglove
Does the hon. Lady agree that a balance has to be struck on taxes? Taking her back to the energy point, one of my concerns is that in the past, the right balance has perhaps not been struck between green taxes and levies and making sure that the needs of our energy-intensive industries are properly reflected in policy. What does she make of that? Is she concerned about the green taxes and levies?
Gill Furniss
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but a lot of work needs to be done in the green energy industries to start with, because we really are missing a bit of a home goal by suddenly putting them on the sidelines. I am sure we will pursue that.