Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Such decisions are, of course, for the Chancellor to announce on Budget day, but, as my hon. Friend will know, the coalition agreement commits this Government to real-terms increases in the personal allowance every year in order to reach the goal of a £10,000 tax allowance, which the Liberal Democrats set out in our election manifesto. As a result of the substantial steps we have already taken, there will be a further tax reduction of £126 for all basic rate taxpayers in this country from April this year.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

10. What fiscal steps he is taking to encourage job creation in the private sector.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

We are making businesses more competitive by cutting business taxes, helping work pay by increasing the personal allowance and introducing universal credit, and helping unemployed people into work through our Work programme and work experience.

[Mark Pawsey]

As someone who owned and ran a business, I welcome the reductions in corporation tax and the small profits rate already announced by my right hon. Friend, but a further area of taxation is business rates, where although the reliefs for small companies are very helpful, many businesses currently face a significant increase. Can anything further be done to help businesses in this respect?

[Mr Osborne]

I will not pre-empt any Budget announcements, but I will say that we have extended small business rate relief to 2013. We announced that in November, and it will help more than half a million small businesses, and we have also introduced a deferral scheme to help larger businesses with their cash flow, so we are doing other things as well as reducing corporation tax—a further reduction in corporation tax is planned for April, of course—and cutting the small companies tax rate, which was due to go up under the previous Labour Government.