Oral Answers to Questions

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

In the Budget the Government reduced business rates relief, which is hitting small businesses hard. Under current plans, in the next financial year small independent businesses could see their rates go up by 80% and chains could see theirs go down by 40%. I have shared that analysis with Ministers; will the Chancellor please promise that she will look at it personally to ensure that this—I think—unintended consequence does not come to pass and independent businesses do not close, leaving even more of our high streets looking the same?

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Lady will know that in the Budget, at a cost of about £1.5 billion, we were able to extend business rates relief, which was due to end entirely under the plans we had inherited from the Conservative party. As she will also know, we are reforming the way in which business rates work so that there are permanently lower rates for hospitality and retail sectors, particularly on our high streets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Yesterday the Chancellor said that she understands the concerns that some people have about the limit at which the winter fuel payment is removed. Does she therefore now agree that restricting the eligibility so tightly was a mistake?

[Rachel Reeves]

As the hon. Lady knows, when I became Chancellor last year, we inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances—not in some year in the future, but in the financial year that we were already three or four months into. This meant that we had to make difficult and urgent decisions to put our public finances back on a firm footing—because, unlike the Conservatives, I will never play fast and loose with the public finances.