Business Rates: High Street Retailers

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right that there needs to be a mechanism to correct that. He is probably aware that we have introduced a Local Government Finance Bill in the other place, where no doubt such matters will be discussed at greater length.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that major online retailers pay considerably lower business rates on their very large warehouses, which puts them at an unfair advantage compared with high-street retailers? What do the Government intend to do about it?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I think the noble Baroness is aware—it is the essence of her question—that, of course, all businesses pay business rates. Larger businesses tend to pay larger business rates. We have focused our reliefs, and the transitional relief which I have just touched upon, on ensuring that smaller businesses have the type of relief that is needed—and much earlier.