Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gagan Mohindra and James Murray

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (James Murray)]

As my hon. Friend sets out, there are significant challenges in adult social care, and we have already made available an extra £4.6 billion, including funding to start to implement the fair pay agreement. As she will probably be aware, Baroness Louise Casey is leading an independent commission to build consensus on reform. Its first phase will report this year, with a focus on how to make the most of existing resources.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

T5. While the Chancellor was enjoying her trip to Davos last week, inflation went up, as did unemployment, reversing the progress of the previous Conservative Government. Did the Chancellor or her Cabinet colleagues pick up any ideas in Davos that could reverse those trends, support our businesses and high streets and end the hiring recession that her Budget has caused?

Business Rates Relief: High-street Businesses

Debate between Gagan Mohindra and James Murray

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mohindra]

One of the likely consequences of the Minister’s proposals is that tenants will look to change their rateable value. Can he assure the House that the Valuation Office Agency will have sufficient resources to ensure that any appeals are done as quickly as possible to give the certainty that our high street retailers and hospitality deserve?

[James Murray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue of the VOA. Its performance is very important for businesses across the country. I am sure that he will have seen our recent announcement that, this year, we are bringing the VOA into His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, rather than it being an arm’s length body. Part of that is to save on administration costs—to protect the public finances—but it is also to ensure that we can work with it to improve its service as much as possible, to give the best and quickest possible service to businesses involved. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that VOA performance is very high on our agenda.

Hon. Members raised the impact of RHL relief on pubs, which is understandable, given the particular importance of pubs in all our local communities. Indeed, we had a competition for who has the best pub in their constituency. I will just about resist the temptation to list the pubs in my constituency, as I am here as a Minister rather than with my constituency hat on, but hon. Members should pop into the Duke of Kent if they are ever in Ealing North. To put this in context, the extension of RHL relief for this year under this Government is saving the average pub with a rateable value of £16,800 more than £3,300. That is a real, meaningful difference to pubs across the country. The Government have, of course, frozen the small business multiplier for this year as well. Taken together with small business rates relief, more than 1 million properties have been protected from inflationary increases in their bills this year.

Some hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge, have argued that the RHL relief in this year should be higher. However, given the Government’s fiscal inheritance, it was not fiscally sustainable to continue the 75% relief, which cost £2.4 billion a year. Crucially, to repeat remarks I have made several times now, our approach from April 2026 will mean no more use of an indefinite stopgap measure. Our approach will instead offer permanently lower tax rates and the stability that those bring for businesses.

The Budget announcements and the changes I have just described reflect the Government’s first steps to support the high street. We want to go further, and modernise the business rates system. At the autumn Budget last year, the Chancellor therefore announced the publication of a discussion paper that sets out priority areas for reform.