Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Pickles and Simon Hart
Mr Pickles
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but you will recall, Mr Speaker, that the Labour party tried to pull this last year, and went deep into voluntary groups, so we introduced our best value guidance, which makes it clear that there is a procedure to go through—and this year there is a right to bid. If I were a voluntary group in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I would be wanting to take over the local authority’s provision—with the money that goes with it.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
T3. Does the Minister agree that we could amend the law to help small businesses by reducing the amount of time between a business rate being appealed against and a local authority going after the money?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Pickles and Simon Hart
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
14. What steps his Department is taking to support local high streets.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
The independent Portas review covered many issues affecting high streets. We will publish our response in the spring, but in the meantime we have introduced measures to support high streets through business rate relief, and local authorities have new powers to levy business rate discounts.
Mr Pickles
That is an excellent undertaking. We sometimes forget that shopping centres are what makes home and are what communities tend to gather around. We have set up a competition to select pilot areas to bring new life into town centres and I hope that my hon. Friend’s authority will apply.
Simon Hart
Tenby and Pembroke in my constituency are absolutely critical to the economic recovery in the area but do not always have access to the Government initiatives that are available in England, particularly the Portas pilots. Is the Minister working with the Welsh Assembly to make sure that Welsh high streets are not left behind English high streets?