Gareth Thomas
Main Page: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)Local Government Finance Bill (Second sitting)
Gareth Thomas Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Q72 The Minister painted a picture this morning of a wonderful, revolutionary Bill that is going to galvanise economic growth across the country. I think that is a reasonable assessment of his performance. Do you think there is anything wrong at all with that assessment?
Sean Nolan: On the basis that it is a long-term opportunity, the Bill has some significant risks and challenges in its implementation. The analogy here is horses running in different directions. Bear in mind that business rates do not correlate with service need. In my view, business rates prospects and potential are more an accident of history and geography than anything else. You cannot all live in the capital; you cannot all live atop silicon valley. Because of that, this agenda is actually not just a technical exercise about how to retain 100% of business rates locally—it is fundamentally about how vital local government services are financed.
On my points about the lack of correlation and on prospects being more an accident of history and geography, there are inevitable inherent policy tensions in the agenda. Some areas feel they have good prospects for growth and can grow, and are very much interested in incentives; some areas are trying to cope with post-industrial Britain and are running hard just to stand still, in terms of growth prospects. Those two tensions—between the haves and have nots—pull apart.
In the world of 100% retention, the incentive—which is really important; everyone needs incentives—is to keep growth local, but it is actually the proceeds of growth that will pay for risk and for those less well off. Those inherent tensions pull in opposite directions. My view is that this is not so much good or bad, but that a reality that has to be recognised is how success is measured. I am interested in how the Bill’s sponsoring Department will define the success of the agenda, relative to those inherent tensions that pull apart—haves and have nots; incentives versus risk.
The Chair
Thank you. Just to say, there is no pressure on all our witnesses to comment on every question.
Jo Miller: In so far as the exam question on the paper might be on business rates, it is a decent response. However, I cannot help but think that we are answering the wrong exam question. I dare to suggest that the real exam question is: in a country that works for everyone, with no one left behind, how do we have the state that we can afford, pay for and need? I venture to suggest that, while retaining business rates goes some way towards localisation, it does not nearly address that question.
Similarly, my area is growing its way out of austerity; we have more jobs and more business stock, albeit from a very low base, and we will continue to prioritise growth. However, I am not sure that the incentivisation of growth in the Bill encourages the right type of jobs—for example, the jobs the Government anticipate in their industrial strategy—not least because business rates is a property-based tax, whereas many of the jobs and businesses of tomorrow will not rely on property to deliver the businesses and jobs that are needed.
Christian Spence: We wholeheartedly support the high-level objective of 100% retention. We agree that, in principle, it is better to create a decision-based model that better aligns local incentives between local authorities and the wider business community. In general, the objective is that local government should, in theory and, hopefully, in practice, be more sensitive to its business community and the opportunities for growth that may be afforded.
However, to echo comments we have already heard, although in principle we wholeheartedly support that high-level objective, we remain concerned about challenges in its delivery—particularly across different economic areas, either because of the different sectors and types of businesses there, or because of long-run examples of those local economies. In principle, it is a very good step in the right direction. In practice, we worry about how some of those things may flow.
Dominic Williams: One of the complications is that there are two separate things going on, both of which are labelled as 100% devolution of business rates. First, there is the devolution of 100% of national business rates income to the local government sector. The sector will then divide that up and give it to local authorities to spend in accordance with their own local priorities. We are fans of devolution and we think that is sensible. The problem is that local authorities have some statutory duties and some discretionary duties, and what has happened over the last few years is that they have cut business-facing discretionary activities in order to fund a shortfall in respect of the statutory obligations, particularly adult social care. In addition to cutting their own expenditure—for example, if you want planning consent for a minor alteration to your building, that becomes much more difficult because planning departments have been cut back—local authorities have increased parking charges dramatically, cracked down on penalties for traffic offences, increased their waste charges and so on. The upshot of all that is that discretionary business-friendly activities have been cut to meet other shortfalls. The important thing to us, perhaps surprisingly, is that local authorities should be properly funded to meet their statutory obligations, and then there would not be such a squeeze on discretionary activities.
Mr Thomas
Q How would you change the Bill?
Dominic Williams: I do not think it is the Bill that needs changing. Beneath the Bill several technical working groups are going through the detail of what needs to be funded and how it should be funded. We are impressed by the way in which the Local Government Association and DCLG are working together on that. We think that it is being done in a grown-up manner and we hope that the outcome of it will be a sensible settlement that is workable.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Q Mr Thomas has asked the question that I was going to ask. None of you, to a larger or lesser extent, have given the Bill the glowing endorsement that perhaps the Government and Minister were hoping for. What other provisions would you look to put in the Bill to address those concerns? Mr Nolan said that not everywhere is silicon valley. What are we going to do to help those areas that are not silicon valley?
Sean Nolan: I genuinely think this is very challenging. Points were made earlier about economic growth. Actually, some of that growth is not necessarily what you would see in a rates valuation. Some of the micro-industries and broadband developments—that kind of thing—do not reflect well in a technical exercise called retention of business rates. That is my first point. Secondly, and I am deliberate with my language, I do think it is a long-term opportunity, but the inherent tensions I have described are real—whether you have or have not, the management of risk and the management of incentives—and this system has to somehow incorporate that.
On the opportunity side, and I say this as CIPFA—I endorse what has been said about how well the LGA and DCLG have worked together—no one wanted too much absolutely nailed down in the Bill, to give a chance for additional scrutiny—
Mr Thomas
Development.
Sean Nolan: Development, sorry. However, looking at the opportunities, a lot depends on how the additional quantum is divvied up and how that transfer of responsibilities comes through. I think that is the opportunity set, to be honest. It deals with two bits. One is about unfunded pressures. Government have a choice there, do they not? They can look at the additional quantum to the extent that it can be part of that solution. Okay, there is a question—the Treasury will never be interested—but they have a choice. The second bit is, within that transfer of responsibilities, what is the opportunity for genuinely giving every part of the country access to agendas that they can better influence—work and skills—rather than it just becoming a technical accountancy exercise of swapping over other existing grants for the quantum? I am trying to deal with the positives, but we all need to recognise that this will end up funding local government and not just economic development, so it has to manage those inherent tensions in a grown-up way.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Q To touch on distribution, which has been referred to a couple of times, the key now is how this pot of extra money is distributed. There seem to be some real disparities in the system at the moment; unfairnesses, I would call them. I will give a few examples at random. Harrow, for example, gets £80 more per head in spending power than North Yorkshire, despite the fact that Harrow has a wealthier, younger population. There does not seem to be any correlation between the spending power of local authorities and the need in those local authority areas.
Kevin Hollinrake
I would go for a different explanation, but what is your feeling?
Sean Nolan: Underneath the detail is a commitment by the Government to undertake what they are calling a fair funding review. That is implicit in this kind of development. In fact, interestingly, we talk about 100% retention from day one, but actually it will be preceded on day zero, so to speak—the day before—by a redistribution, in theory, of resources around the country and between councils, because the Government have committed to doing a fair funding review of need. In a sense, I cannot comment particularly on the rights and wrongs of an historical position; all I can say is that where we are now is a reflection of judgments made in the past about the right kind of formula and what is meant by need. It has been frozen for a number of years, but that is its history.
The Government—and, I suppose, Parliament—have an opportunity to eventually look at what will be, in their timetable, a complete review of needs. You have picked up on a crucial point, if I may say so, Mr Hollinrake, because that will be happening, effectively, the day before a new scheme and it will move money around. Their argument, and it is one we would clearly like to support, although the devil will be in the detail, will be that that will set a fairer base. In my experience, fairness is in the eye of the beholder, but that will be their argument.
Steve Double
Q I take your point about growth and development. I was more touching on the direct link and the fact that, at the moment, my local business community pay their business rates to central Government. There is no direct connection between them and their local council in how that money is spent, whereas if the Bill comes into force, there will be a direct connection, and the business community will see that they are directly funding the operation of the council. That was more what I was touching on. I take your point about future growth, but I see the current strengthening of that direct relationship.
Sean Nolan: That it includes the kind of richness of the conversation between a local council and its local businesses is undoubtedly part of the positive benefit. It feels like trying to do that is an agenda for every council up and down the country.
The caveat we need to bear in mind—I am afraid this is part of the complexity of what will now have to happen—is that it is not a one-to-one relationship. Because of the existence of top-up and tariffs, what businesses pay may not necessarily go to their local authority and may go elsewhere. That makes managing expectations in the conversation a bit more complicated. However, in theory it definitely adds to the benefit of the conversation, although the one-to-one relationship you describe is a bit confused by the top-up and tariffs.
Christian Spence: The 100% retention on its own has the potential to open up a greater and more transparent conversation between business and local authorities about where the money goes and how it is spent. You are right that most businesses perceive that business rates vanish into a black hole—they have no idea where it goes. However, the 100% retention aspect of this Bill alone will not deal with that. It can enable a better conversation between local authorities and local businesses, but there will be a lot of work to do to develop that aspect.
There is an opportunity in a later aspect of the Bill for greater involvement involving the widening of the bid arrangements to property owners, the Business Rate Supplements Act 2009 becoming applicable to mayoral combined authorities, and specifically the new idea of a mayoral infrastructure levy that is available to those bodies. There is an opportunity in those measures for a direct, two-way, open and honest relationship between the BID and/or the local authority on one side and business on the other, or between the mayor and the greater visibility of local government, which we should see following from 5 May onwards.
That transparency and openness are welcome. The view of businesses across the country is that if local authorities are looking to increase spending or even to levy specifically for additional strategic projects in their areas, business is not necessarily unwilling to pay—the existence of more than 200 BIDs in the country is tacit evidence that that is the case. We are pleased to see the consultation aspect of mayoral infrastructure levies move on from a majority vote of the local enterprise partnership to a wider consultation—that is in the spirit of moving things in the direction that we would like. However, the challenge in the Bill from our point of view is that it stops short of a ratepayer vote against the levy and simultaneously brings forward the wider participation of BIDs to owner-occupiers, and of business rate supplements to combined authorities, which means that the Bill is confusing its own purpose directly in two ways. We are very happy to lay on the table the opportunity for the mayor of a combined authority to levy a tuppence supplement in business rates under the 2009 Act, and to be forced to ballot local businesses to ensure buy-in and support, but, under the mayoral infrastructure levy it can deliver that same tuppence levy without a ballot of the members of the business community. If we are not careful, we will introduce a perverse incentive. Where there are opportunities to increase that engagement and build those relationships, one aspect of the Bill will damage that rather than move it forward.
Mr Thomas
Q One suggestion we have heard is that the needs assessment process should be conducted independently of Government. I wondered where the panel stands on that question.
Sean Nolan: Can I play back to the Committee some reflections from when I was involved in policing recently as a treasurer in that world? You will remember that the Home Office went through quite a challenging exercise, looking at new formulae for allocating policing, which ran into some difficulties. One of the bits of feedback that professionally a number of us put in on lessons learned is that the needs bit—the conversation we are having—is about complex statistical modelling. As well as having confidence in the actual indicators in a conversation with the sector, you also need to have confidence in the choice of statistical technique. I therefore think that it is not so much about having an independent element outside of the system. What would be really helpful would be if DCLG read across from elsewhere and brought into the process an independent element, perhaps advising in real time on the choices of statistical techniques, and some kind of independent validation of procedure. I have to say that that would be a confidence-building part of building consensus around what is fair.
Jo Miller: I thought Mr Nolan put it beautifully.
Mr Thomas
Q As I understand it, the Bill will be fiscally neutral, so in order to get the £12.8 billion of additional business rates income, local authorities will have to do more. Where do you think that will lead? I appreciate that there is still a conversation going on between the LGA and the Department but, as I understand it, they are some way apart in the discussion on responsibilities. Can you give us a sense of the flavour of where you think the extra responsibilities will fall? What do you think the impact on your budgets will be from the end of at least the better care fund, the public health grant, the rural services delivery grant and some other funds? The consultation document from last year strongly hinted at those being ended.
Jo Miller: The gap in public service funding is well documented. I think the LGA talked to you about £5.8 billion by 2020 and £2.6 billion in social care today. I go back to the point about the amount of money that Government and the people want to spend. There is still no doubt in my mind that we can spend money better by joining things up at a local level. For example, the answer in social care is not just more money, but how well that money is spent and how well the system comes together to spend that money as effectively as possible. The same goes for the criminal justice system and children and families. I encourage Government to look at the totality of money that is spent across the piece. I mentioned skills as another matter where we have to look at how we get better bangs for our buck. While money continues to come down departmental pipelines, we are missing a trick.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Q This is more of a general question that I would like to put to Mr Spence first. The Bill is all about encouraging growth and generating more business rates, which will hopefully then enable us to pay for more services. Would you say that the way in which that has been handled until now has potentially hampered growth, and do you see the Bill changing it? Some tools in the Bill are supposed to help—pooling, the infrastructure levy and things like that. Mr Spence, would you say that that was going to happen through the Bill?
Christian Spence: The Bill opens up some opportunities where it might happen, and in a moment I will come to why I think there are some problems. On the first part of the question and whether the business rates system today as it stands hampered growth, the answer is clearly yes, it has. The nature of the economy over the past 10 years or more has changed significantly. Usage of physical space is less important to the economy today than it was a decade ago, and we would expect to see that change continue over the coming decades and beyond.
The business rates system is still locked around its old-fashioned way of looking at a predominantly manufacturing and machinery-led economy. The inclusion of plant and machinery within the valuation system not only acts as a detriment to investment and causes perverse incentives directly to businesses as to whether to invest, but is administratively complex and procedurally onerous. As one of the largest revenues for a property tax in the world, it sets us outside our international competition very significantly in terms of how we manage commercial revenue.
Does the Bill move us closer? It has the potential to do so, but to echo some comments from Mr Williams earlier, the challenge is that, by allowing 100% retention—I spoke earlier about why we support that as a high level principle to better connect the incentives through local authorities and business—the Bill has at its heart real challenges. It is still fundamentally property based. To go to Mr McMahon’s question earlier, we do not see any reason why you would particularly want to move away from that system for well-versed economic reasons, but the challenge is that local authorities are going to grow their revenue only by introducing new floor space developments. We hugely welcome the changes in business rates policy to lift 100% relief to rateable value of £15,000 and above, but it means that properties with less than that rateable value do not add any net cash to local authority business rate receipts.
The challenge is that you are incentivising local authorities to grow their business rates revenue, which can have a perverse incentive, as Mr Williams mentioned—are you looking after your existing business base and helping it to grow, because incremental growth of most businesses is unlikely to deliver significant expansion of rateable value properties that can be levied for rates? If you are focusing exclusively on new premises of a high rateable value, the question for a lot of authorities will be: “Is there physically the land available to deliver significant growth in those areas?”
The Chair
Mr Travers is familiar with our proceedings, but for Mr Lowman’s benefit, do enjoy the session. Colleagues are just trying to gather information when they start the detailed scrutiny of the Bill and we will go from side to side for questioning. We have 45 minutes.
Mr Thomas
Q What is wrong with the Bill, in your view? Obviously, the Minister thinks it is wonderful, but no doubt you will be slightly sceptical about whether that viewpoint is completely accurate.
James Lowman: From a business point of view, we support the Bill. Our concerns are about the notion of giving councils the opportunity to reduce the multiplier. We support that, but how realistic is it that the powers will be used and applied? That is partly because of issues with local government funding that you will know about much better than I do.
From our perspective, the Government have already introduced powers for local authorities to give discretionary rate relief for whatever reason they like. That can be used to support high streets, or particular sectors or areas. That is very under-used—it is being used by about 12% of councils at the moment—which makes us sceptical about the likelihood of councils using the powers in the Bill to reduce the business rates burden, given the pressures we all know they are under. Against that, while there are many good checks and balances against the introduction of increases in business rates and levies, there is a concern to ensure that powers in the Bill are not pushed as far as they can to try to increase business rates revenues. That would be our summary position.
Professor Tony Travers: In that the Bill carries on the work started by 50% business rate retention back in 2011—and even going back to the previous Labour Government, when they had the local authority business growth incentive scheme—those things are both rational in moving towards a system where local authorities at least have some chance of retaining the uplift in any growth in the tax base they generate. That makes sense, in my view. What is wrong is what is often wrong in UK—or, in this case, English—systems of local government finance. Although this looks like a move to a system where councils are completely dependent on council tax and business rates, in truth there are still many ways in which the Government of the day can intervene, making the actual business of running local government not as predictable as would be the case if it was a purely locally funded system of local government finance.
David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)
Q This is a question for Mr Lowman. On Second Reading I agreed with the point made by your organisation that there is a potential for local authorities to try to increase business rate revenues by signing off larger planning applications for developments at the cost of small businesses. How can that be mitigated?
James Lowman: That is a concern regarding having a greater incentive to bring in large chunks of business rates through large developments, which was touched on in the previous session. There is a danger in our sector if a big out-of-town supermarket application is granted because of the effect it will have on the high street, other surrounding neighbourhood retailers and so on. In the grocery market, that is less common than it was a few years ago. None the less, it is true that out-of-town developments can harm high streets. The temptation to grant those applications concerns us because that may lead to a large slug of business rates coming up in the first instance but, over time, business rates income will diminish as those town centre and high street businesses come under pressure—of course, there are other effects.
The most effective way of mitigating that would be to have a long reset period. We have suggested 10 years, but some people have suggested longer. The reason is that the impact of those big developments can be felt more fully across that longer reset period. If you have a short reset period, you may see the upside of the development without the downside of the closures and other consequences. That long reset period would be one way of reducing that temptation for authorities.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q Mr Lowman, how comfortable are your members with things like business rate supplements and infrastructure supplements?
James Lowman: There is concern. Half our members’ trade comes from within a quarter of a mile of their store—they are the local shop. Our reach into communities is pretty much unparalleled in any business sector. One thing that concerns them from that perspective is that large infrastructure projects may not be that relevant to them. New motorway links, new transport or major new developments will be less relevant to their particular trading position.
They are concerned about mechanisms for increasing their overall business rates bill. They broadly support the business improvement district model and the opportunity to have a very specific programme and proposal on which they can vote, and which needs an endorsement of business rates value from the majority of premises. That seems like a good double lock on ensuring that things that come through in business improvement districts are relevant to them.
We would encourage a similar sort of level of consultation without being very specific about what is being proposed. We are concerned about consultation. It is perhaps damning our own sector, but it is not routinely engaged with local authorities, local chambers of commerce or other local bodies. Perhaps they should be, but it is a fact that they generally are not engaged day to day. We are concerned about reaching those businesses in order to consult them. The relevance, the location and the mechanism of consultation is a concern, but it has been taken on in some of the checks and balances in the Bill.
Mr Thomas
Q Let us imagine that you are the ruthless, hard-nosed treasurer of a council that sees this Bill coming into force. Presumably, you are going to want to try to negotiate a very low top-up, assuming that you are a reasonably well-off area in terms of finance and land. Presumably, you are not going to look at small businesses. You are going to rush, as much as you can, to encourage the Amazon-style warehouse or JD Sports kind of warehouse. Surely that is the only incentive that is wise in the Bill in terms of business rates growth. You might actually put to one side the engine of future economies or businesses because they are not going to bring you any reward.
James Lowman: Unfortunately, Amazon warehouses do not pay that much in business rates, which is one of the challenges here. This is why we need a long reset period. There is a benefit in the intention of the Bill, and we fully support it. The benefit is that, if a council can make itself a more attractive area for businesses to invest in and to set up there and to stay in business when they are already there, they will benefit from that overall. We do support that as a principle, but as I said in answer to an earlier question there is a danger that they will be tempted by and attracted to big hits of business rates coming in with big developments. So that is a very active concern.
Professor Tony Travers: Small business has lobbied for a number of years for relief, which hundreds of thousands now have. If you move from a system where a substantial number of small businesses receive a relief, to a system where local authorities are given an incentive to build up the tax base, you must accidentally create an incentive to give planning permissions for those that are more likely to pay the business rate. It is not intended to work like that, but it must inevitably produce an incentive to give planning permission for businesses that do pay the rate rather than those that get exemption. Of course, the reliefs are partly, I suspect, built in to the base on which all of this starts, but I doubt over time that that would be uprated in line with overall growth. There is inevitably an incentive—not intended—for local authorities to give planning permissions for and to build up businesses that pay business rates compared with those that get relief, I would have thought.
Mr Thomas
Q Do you think there should be an element of independence in the needs assessment process that is being done at the moment, and that might be done at future points?
Professor Tony Travers: The needs assessment process that underpins local government finances has been an element of pressure and complexity going back to the 1920s, but particularly since the 1960s. We are now going to have a reset, after some time without a reset. Any time there is a reset, you would expect—all other things being equal—a big jump in the change, inevitably. The longer you have a period without a change, the bigger the jump between those places that have become needier and those that have become less needy, relatively speaking.
There is another tension here: the longer you leave the period between resets, the more instability you will get at the point of the reset, but you get less within the period during which there is no reset. There is then the issue that the longer you leave it without a reset, the greater the perceived—I stress perceived—unfairness for those that feel that they are being left behind. The truth is that the English system of local government finance has a very high expectation of redistribution buried within it that goes back a long time. There are a lot of pressures from politicians of all parties to make it fair—I am sorry to say this—for their authorities. Fair is more for us—which is fair enough. At the point of the reset, there will always be a war of all against all to get it right for our class and our type of authority. Having said that, I think most politicians centrally and locally would share the view, and I say this again in front of a number of politicians, that that is a reasonable thing to do—that is, to have a system that is seen to be and is fair—but delivering fairness is difficult, particularly at a time when local government finance in total is static or the total is falling.
If you think about it, in the world we are moving to, local government spending will be lower in total in 2019-20 than it is today. At the point of the redistribution—this is also true for schools’ funding redistribution, by the way—it is not as if you are redistributing at a point where it is growing by 6% a year; it is when it is growing. That makes it a far more painful business for Ministers and other MPs, simply because there is less money in the system. It is just a fact of life.
Steve Double
Q Something has just come to me while listening to the discussion and following on from the question about granting planning permission for large units. I represent a fairly rural constituency in Cornwall, where we have seen a number of convenience store-type premises that qualify for relief, perhaps small business or rural rate relief, being converted to residential units. I wonder whether there will be an unintended outcome from the Bill and whether there may be an attraction for local authorities to grant permission for change in use to residential. They are not getting the income from the business rates, because of the relief, but they will suddenly get council tax if it converts to a residential unit, therefore increasing their income. Has that crossed your mind and is there anything we can do to try to prevent that happening?
Professor Tony Travers: Before James says anything about his sector, the whole purpose of introducing this system, which, as I said, I broadly sympathise with, is to create more incentives for authorities to think about their economy and to build it up. But it is absolutely the case that, if you face a choice, particularly now there is permitted development—you can change from non-domestic to domestic more easily than in the past—if the small non-domestic property does not pay a tax and the small domestic property would, inevitably, that creates—I am not saying all authorities would take it on every occasion, but it is within the realms of the incentive that you describe.
James Lowman: Alongside that there is a significant incentive to the operator or the property owner. In most cases, that property would be worth more as residential than it would be as a business, although there would be exceptions to that. There has to be a strong and effective planning system and local plans, so that we do not have case by case, site by site conversion from retail to residential. That may have to happen—some high streets may have to get a bit smaller—but it has to be done on a planned basis. It cannot be simply site by site—the lease comes up and it is converted to residential. That way you get very long, incoherent, pockmarked high streets without a clear centre to them. I think it is really important that the planning system mitigates that. As well as the commercial incentive for that to happen sometimes, there may now be—I will leave it to councils to say to what extent that will actually act as an incentive, but I entirely take the point you are making.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q Therefore, is it not all the more important that the future formula is based on those cost drivers? There will be some new cost drivers as a result of the additional responsibilities at that point.
Professor Tony Travers: It is true. Public health is one of the grants that is up there as a possible new responsibility. There is currently a ring-fenced grant, but it could in future be funded purely by local government. Clearly, the needs formula would need to reflect that if that were distributed differently from if it were all transport, further education and skills, which might be thought to be more linked, by the way, to building the local economy. That is a separate issue. So there is no question but that the responsibilities that are handed to local government as part of the reform will affect the need for the needs distribution arrangements; they will have to reflect them.
Mr Thomas
Q In the debate about how to even out changes in the tax base, let us take the example of Heathrow. The third runway is coming. One would have thought that that would inevitably make the area around Heathrow attractive to a number of businesses. Councils such as Maidenhead, perhaps, and Hillingdon will be hoping that their treasuries will benefit from substantial business rate income down the line. How do you think that sort of major structural change at local level should be dealt with under the system?
Professor Tony Travers: I will offer a personal view. I was always surprised that the potential impact of the decision about where the additional runway in the south-east was to be located did not take into account, as far as I could see, the knock-on consequences for the local authorities in the area, given the business rate retention scheme that we are discussing. Any additional runway capacity, be it in the south-east, Manchester, the west Midlands or wherever, must have significant knock-on impacts. You are right.
In principle, when properties are revalued that uplift will be captured. Then the issue, which has always been an element of challenge to even the 50% business rate retention, is whether councils keep only the uplift on new business, or the uplift for the existing properties paying higher rates. As the Bill goes through Parliament, how much of the uplift as a result of a major national change of this kind is retained locally, and how much goes back to the Exchequer through its tax mechanisms, is a very interesting question.
Rebecca Pow
Q My businesses in Taunton, particularly since I have been an MP, have had a constant gripe that they pay business rates and so little is kept locally. I am told that 7.5% is what we get. Do you foresee that this new Bill will enable a much closer relationship to be forged between business and the local authorities, now that there is the concept of keeping 100% of the business rates? It has been quite antagonistic, has it not, Mr Lowman, particularly from your experience?
James Lowman: Honestly, that is not a gripe we get back. The level of business rates, the perceived fairness of business rates in comparison with neighbouring businesses, larger businesses or internet businesses—absolutely. What then happens to that income is not something we hear back about a great deal. I think that the perception of increased business rates and worsening service in areas that matter to businesses—whether that is waste, licensing or, in some cases, things such as policing—gets drawn into that. Whatever the realities of what is funded by what, the perception is, “I am funding the area I am operating in” so if the services in an area appear to be worse, that may be part of that overall perception. But I have never had a business come to me and say, “I don’t mind paying more business rates, but I have a problem with where it goes”.