Anne Marie Morris
Main Page: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)Business Rates (North-East)
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Julie Elliott
I agree. The problems in the north-east are not just in the cities and urban areas. The rural areas of Northumberland and County Durham are as badly affected, but I think that is why the ANEC report has cross-party support. We have Liberals and Tories in government in the north-east, and of course Labour. I think that the reason for the cross-party support is that everyone understands the very difficult economic situation that our region faces.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I want to put in a word for the south, because the south-west is equally deprived. There is a view that we live in a land of cream teas and lots of strawberries, but where I am in Teignbridge, we have the twelfth-highest share of small business rate relief. Some 40% of properties get that relief, so if the proposal pooled actual receipts rather than calculating by rateable value, we would lose out. I share the hon. Lady’s concern that for rural areas, such as mine, thought should be given to how money can be brought back to communities that need it, but I support the concept of pooling.
Julie Elliott
Other parts of the country are in similar situations; the issue for the north-east is that the entire region is struggling.
The system the Government propose favours the growth of retail space and distribution centres, rather than small and medium-sized businesses and, most crucially in the north-east, manufacturing. Practically, that means that a hectare of land used for retail in the north-east will yield £1 million, compared with £200,000 for manufacturing. It feels as if my region is being punished for manufacturing things. We must remember that manufacturing needs to be at the heart of any national strategy for long-term economic growth. The sector contributes £7.5 billion to the north-east economy per year. We export more than we import, which is helping to rebalance the economy in these difficult financial times. Business rates may value retail and commercial sites the most, but they just do not reflect the way our region’s economy is made up, and with so many people out of work, increasing the number of shops is not the answer and would not be sustainable.
I would be interested to hear more from the Minister about the proposals for introducing mechanisms to overcome economic shocks, which are particularly relevant to the north-east, as we have already suffered from them.