Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Time and again, the hon. Gentleman stands at the Dispatch Box asking for billions and billions of more spending. He has no idea how the funds are raised, and he would do much better to support the measures that we are taking to keep our economy strong so that we can pay for all those services.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

T6. The move to calculate business rates using CPI instead of RPI is reducing bills for many small businesses across the country, but 62 councils are yet to move to CPI despite the Government providing Budget funding. What are the Government doing to ensure that all councils use CPI to calculate their business rates?

[Mr Marcus Jones]

While the vast majority of local authorities have re-billed their businesses, it is unacceptable that some councils still have not. The Government have given councils a £435 million package of support for businesses, so I urge all councils that have not yet done the right thing to do so urgently.