Supporting High Streets
Debate between Lizzi Collinge and Tom Tugendhat(5 days, 12 hours ago)
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Tom Tugendhat
This explains why I was never welcome in the Navy.
You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are many other high streets, such as those in Romsey and Southampton, that are doing well despite this Government’s policies. However, we are seeing a series of changes that are costing us all, and I think it is worth focusing on a few of them.
The first affects retail, hospitality and leisure properties, which are seeing their rate relief reduced to 40%, and only up to a cash limit of £110,000 per business. Why is that happening? Well, this is basically just another tax grab. It is just another attempt to ensure that those who are working hard to put food on their tables—and, by the way, to put food on the tables of everybody else in this country by generating that employment—
Tom Tugendhat
I will just finish the point, if I may.
While they are working hard to do that, this Government are trying to squeeze them. I understand why they are doing that, because they have got themselves into a level of debt that is genuinely extraordinary. They are piling it on even more quickly than anybody—
Tom Tugendhat
If I may, I will just finish my point.
They are piling on the debt even more quickly than any other Administration for a long time, with the exception of during covid, when, as Members will agree, Labour wanted to spend even more. That squeeze is hurting businesses more and more.
I know of independent retailers in Tonbridge and Edenbridge that have seen 300% increases in business rates as a result. It is simply not sustainable. We are talking about taking money off businesses before they are able to pay those who are working there 24/7—those who own the business. That charge, that squeeze and that pain are being put on individuals who are getting up early and trying their damnedest to keep their business going. It is completely absurd.
The £110,000 valuation is artificial, because business rates are set by the Valuation Office Agency, and local businesses have no input. There is no way for decisions to be challenged and no real accountability. We are seeing a Government agency setting a valuation that allows taxation to rise with no possibility of appeal. This is simply no way to run an economy. We are seeing ever-increasing centralisation.
The correct thing to do would be to allow businesses to keep some of the money that they are making in order to reinvest in themselves and in staff, and to actually allow councils to have some say. If we believe in democracy and in individuals having the ability to shape their future, surely we must extend them the right to control how towns, villages and communities across our country tax themselves. Sadly, that is not what we are seeing. We are seeing what we used to describe as a nation of shopkeepers—that nation that defeated tyranny in Europe not once but many times—becoming a nation of bookkeepers, all taxed by the state.
Lizzi Collinge
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman got to his point, kind of. He mentioned hospitality workers. I was a hospitality worker for many years, so I know how hard work it is. I also know about the people who will benefit on the shop floor from the Government’s Employment Rights Bill. Could the right hon. Gentleman say more about how regulation is supposedly harming workers, because as a former hospitality worker I see the benefits of the Employment Rights Bill for all my former colleagues.
Tom Tugendhat
I would be delighted to, because direct comparison can be drawn with other countries that have extended these same rules. They protect the workers who are in the job—that is absolutely true—but they dissuade anybody else from joining and starting as a new hire. Then those countries see exactly what we are seeing in the UK today: growing youth unemployment. When there is a burden on a business that makes it harder to change its employment structure, it simply delays employment. That is all that happens.
Lizzi Collinge
I thank the right hon. Member for his generosity in giving way, because I am finding this debate very interesting. In the rural areas of my constituency, businesses are struggling to hire workers not because of the cost but because local workers cannot afford to live in those areas because there is no affordable housing. Does the right hon. Member agree that it is very welcome that the Government are focusing on the practicalities that ordinary workers need in order to be employed, which will help rural businesses like those in my area that are struggling to recruit?
Tom Tugendhat
Forgive me, but I do not agree. I can see that transport connections and the £2 bus link—which has now gone up by 50% under this Government—was crucial to helping small businesses survive in rural areas, but businesses that were taking in younger people as new starters are not hiring them because of cost. The cost of any change that may be needed in the business, which may evolve or shape itself differently, means that effectively it is not worth the risk. We see this again and again.
The tragedy is that I am not telling this House anything new. This speech could have been given anytime in the past 50 years. The reality is that we have tried all these experiments, and we know how they work: they end up with rising unemployment, rising debt burdens and fewer public services. We know where this goes.
Income Tax (Charge)
Debate between Lizzi Collinge and Tom Tugendhat(1 year ago)
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Tom Tugendhat
No, not just now.
The truth is that what we are seeing is a level of short-termism. That is completely clear in agriculture and industry, but the tragedy is that it is also clear in education. A great privilege of being the MP for Tonbridge is that I represent some of the finest schools in this country—others may claim that title, but I know that I speak the truth when I say that. Many of those schools are grant-maintained in different ways; others are private. They are, in many ways, a web of education that works extremely well together in our community. Some, such as Hillview School for Girls—a fantastic school at which I was privileged to be on the governing board—are state schools, while others, such as the Judd school, are grammar schools, and one, Tonbridge school, is private.
The truth is that the 20% plus business rates—I think the extra cost that will now fall on private schools comes to about 40%—means that every single kid in my constituency will have to pay for the VAT in some way. Either they will have to pay for it because fees go up, or they will pay for it because class sizes are larger. I am afraid that the schools will not be able to swallow the costs, so we will see pressure all the way through.
Tom Tugendhat
I will not, because I have been asked to be quick.
That is not just a burden on those kids, but a rejection of the relationship between family members in their willingness and desire to invest in the future.
I know that the Labour Government claim that the only way for investment to be done is by the state, that the only thing that really matters is when that is done by a bureaucrat and a civil servant, that the only thing that really counts is when the Government pay for it. But we know that is simply not true. We know that business and the freedom to invest, plan and forecast are what make an economy grow. Sadly, the Government have tried to nationalise the future, shorten the time horizon and make us all pay for it. That is why growth is falling, taxes are rising and the future is made worse again and again under Labour.