Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Byles Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to assist small businesses with payment of business rate bills.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to assist small businesses with payment of business rate bills.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

We are doubling the level of small business rate relief in England for one year, from 1 October 2010. More than 500,000 businesses in England are expected to benefit, with approximately 345,000 businesses paying no rates. That will be a valuable reduction in fixed costs for new and existing small businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

I am aware of my hon. Friend’s campaign and I pay tribute to his work for small businesses in his area. The Government propose to introduce a business growth bonus, which will reward local authorities for giving planning permission for new business premises. We are also examining ways to enable local authorities to discount the business rate, and we will ensure that in areas where business rate supplement is considered, businesses have a proper opportunity to vote on it in a ballot.

[Dan Byles]

Local councils’ powers to help small businesses in their areas and to help areas in need of economic regeneration, such as the town of Bedworth in my constituency, are limited. Does the Under-Secretary agree that local councils need more powers, such as the ability to vary business rates within a borough or district to create local economic regeneration zones, to help new and existing businesses invest in struggling towns and villages?

[Robert Neill]

That is precisely why the Government propose to introduce the opportunity to discount the rate, to consider the way in which business rate supplement operates in an area and, above all, to ensure that, at the same time as we create the ability to attract housing into an area through our council tax incentive, we give an equal incentive—the business rate growth incentive—to provide jobs and business in an area.