High Street Retailers

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is following up on a point that has been made. As I said, there is provision in our manifesto that we will review this area, and the Treasury is looking at this area on an international basis. Indeed, we are leading the charge because, as the noble Lord will be aware, a lot of that trading is done internationally and we need to ensure that there is the level playing field of which he spoke.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not true that many commercial landlords are pushing up rents, particularly of shops, because they are taking advantage of the business rate relief scheme, which exempts businesses with a rateable value of under £12,000 a year from paying business rates? They are simply taking away what the public sector would otherwise gain.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I would appeal to the noble Lord that, if he has evidence of that, I would be happy to look at it. He is right that we introduced business rate relief on a more pervasive basis after the revaluation so that most small businesses are not paying business rates at all, but my department would be interested to see the evidence to which the noble Lord alluded, if he has it.