Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I thank their noble lordships for their diligent further consideration of the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill and for the new amendments they have passed to address their concerns with the legislation. These changes shine a spotlight on Labour’s muddled priorities, exposing an approach that punishes aspiration, squeezes business, and increases the cost of living for consumers and the cost of doing business.

This very week, we will see the new jobs tax introduced and business rate hikes. The Employment Rights Bill is coming down the line, which is of great concern to many private sector businesses, and consumers will consequently see higher prices and lower wages. Tomorrow, we will also see a hike in council tax, energy prices, water bills, broadband and the BBC licence fee.

I will address the four primary groups of amendments in turn. First, Lords amendments 1B and 7B tackle the proposal to levy a higher multiplier on medical, dental and other healthcare settings. The amendments would prudently protect all healthcare premises—occupied or vacant—from the higher multiplier, addressing a glaring flaw in Labour’s Bill. For too long, we have cautioned against their detachment from practical governance, but now it is undeniable: rather than targeting the untaxed profits of internet giants as pledged, they are heaping costs on to hospitals and GP surgeries. It is baffling that Labour’s so-called reform of the rating system would burden healthcare at all, let alone doing so while they plan to hike national insurance on jobs tomorrow to fund the NHS—only to claw it back today by taxing those same health services.

Just yesterday, the Government pledged to funnel more cash into the NHS by taxing jobs through national insurance hikes, yet today they turn around and tax the NHS itself via business rates. It is a fiscal farce—a two-faced assault on healthcare that undermines their own rhetoric. As Conservative Members have mentioned in recent debates, Labour’s obsession with revenue grabs over sensible relief is choking the sectors we need most.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that there seems to be a disjointed approach, where the Health Secretary is asking for more healthcare in the community, whereas we will be asking anybody who moves from a central location into the community to pay these additional taxes and rates?

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member is right; there is no logic to the Government’s approach. They are giving with one hand and taking with the other, and they are making the kinds of decisions he talks about ever more difficult.

Lords amendments 2B and 8B address the ratings regime for anchor stores on our beleaguered high streets. We echo the words of the John Lewis chief executive Nish Kankiwala, who warned that Labour’s Budget is a “two-handed grab” at retailers that piles on national insurance increases while refusing to reform business rates as it promised to do. Retailers face a £7 billion hit from these policies, with consumers braced for higher prices as a result.

These amendments exempt anchor stores—the vital engines of our town centres—from the higher multiplier. It is a lifeline that Labour seems determined to withhold. Unoccupied anchor stores would also escape this punishing rate, preventing empty shopfronts from becoming permanent scars on our highstreets. Setting the threshold for the higher multiplier at £500,000 is a blunt instrument, as the Minister concedes. I can assure the Government that this will have consequences for businesses that are not big tech giants. It will hit large supermarkets, supermarket delivery and large department stores, showing that the Labour Government have not thought it through.

Conservative Members have rightly decried Labour’s neglect of retail, and they are right. The Leader of the Opposition has rightly highlighted that Labour’s rates multiplier fiasco is killing off the high street while real reform is dodged. Businesses face a double whammy of higher taxes and no certainty thanks to a Government who are more interested in punishing aspiration than powering growth.

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On the review of the £500,000 threshold, we have already said that there are provisions in the Bill to address that.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The Minister says that the solution that he has alighted on meets his manifesto commitment, but his manifesto says,

“This new system will level the playing field between the high street and online giants”.

That is not what the provision does—not exclusively. He knows that it levies extra taxes, extra business rates, on high street stores, large department stores, supermarkets, football stadiums and many others. They are not online giants.

[Jim McMahon]

The rating system adequately reflects the scale of properties. Less than 1% of properties in the business rates system will use the higher multiplier. That will fund the tax break for those on the high street that will use the lower multipliers. In the evidence session —the hon. Gentleman was there—we heard retailers say, “Of course, that will have an impact on our distribution centres, but we have so many stores that are below the threshold.” That allows national retailers with multiple locations to benefit; in the round, they find themselves better off as a result of this policy. As for rebalancing the situation for online retailers and those on our high streets, that is exactly what this measure does. Big distribution centres will pay for that relief.

I once again thank hon. Members for their contributions, but for the reasons set out, I respectfully ask this House to disagree with the amendments before us.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1B.

The House proceeded to a Division.