Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Hume Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

21. What steps she has taken to help increase economic growth in the north-east.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

23. What steps she has taken to help increase economic growth in North Yorkshire.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)]

The Government are better targeting these reliefs to make them fairer. The latest figures for 2021-22 show that the top 7% of claims are counted for 40% of the total value of agricultural property relief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I remember a very nice dinner of fish and chips with her in her constituency just a few years ago, and she is a strong advocate for local businesses in South Shields. In the Budget, we were able to extend business rates relief to the retail, hospitality and leisure sector of 40% for the next financial year and then to move it on to a fairer footing, so that high street businesses and smaller businesses pay fairer rates of business tax compared with, for example, the online giants.

[Alison Hume]

The bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis builds innovative electric buses, employing 800 people in Scarborough. The Chancellor has spoken about the need for public procurement to take better account of employment and environmental standards. As bus services are brought back into the control of mayors and local authorities, will the Government use public procurement to back British companies such as Alexander Dennis to boost economic growth?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is a good advocate for businesses, including Alexander Dennis in Scarborough. The Government will soon publish a new national procurement policy statement, which will set out our priorities for public procurement in support of our mission to grow the economy. In addition to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), we recognise the importance of buses in growing our economy by getting people to work, but also the opportunities to use public procurement to buy more buses made in this country, supporting good jobs here in Britain.