Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kate Dearden]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and I thank him for doing so. I agree that it is completely unacceptable for businesses to seek to undercut others in a race to the bottom through bogus self-employment. Employers should never seek to deny people their employment rights and to avoid their own legal obligations by claiming that someone is self-employed when in reality they might not be. We will therefore consult on the changes to the status framework and our action to improve compliance, and we will of course engage with all stakeholders as part of that.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

13. What steps he is taking to support businesses with their operating costs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)]

The Government are working hard to reduce operating costs for all UK businesses, including those in Chichester. We are working to reduce the annual administrative burden of regulation by £5.6 billion by 2029, enabling businesses to unlock growth and boost innovation across key sectors. We are introducing the most significant legislation to tackle late payments in over 25 years, providing a support package worth more than £4 billion over the next three years to help business rate payers and fully funding apprenticeship training costs for all eligible 16 to 24-year-olds.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

The irony for many small businesses in Chichester is that they are busy, well established and popular. It is not bad business, but bad policy, that is making them struggle.

“The current business rates system disincentivises investment, creates uncertainty and places an undue burden on our high streets.”

Those are not my words; they are lifted from the Labour party manifesto. When should my local businesses expect the changes to business rates that they need, and will the Government please explore a commercial landowner levy in their upcoming review?

[Blair McDougall]

The hon. Member is right to highlight the Government’s commitment to tackling inadequacies in the way rates are calculated, and that is exactly what my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury spoke about from the Dispatch Box the other day. Beyond the rates issue, we are protecting high street businesses from upward-only rental review clauses, and we are introducing a community right to buy so that people can take ownership of valued community assets on the high street. We also have rental options for empty properties on the high street and action on bogus businesses, as the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), mentioned. We are doing a great deal to help the businesses the hon. Member described.