Robert Neill
Main Page: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
12. What steps he is taking to assist small businesses with payment of business rate bills.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
We are doubling the level of small business rate relief in England for one year, from 1 October 2010. More than 500,000 businesses in England are expected to benefit, with approximately 345,000 businesses paying no rates. That will be a valuable reduction in fixed costs for new and existing small businesses.
Nick de Bois
In Enfield North, we have been campaigning hard to bring in new businesses and start-ups and to encourage people to relocate to the area. What practical steps will the Under-Secretary take to allow my local authority to get behind that campaign?
Robert Neill
I am aware of my hon. Friend’s campaign and I pay tribute to his work for small businesses in his area. The Government propose to introduce a business growth bonus, which will reward local authorities for giving planning permission for new business premises. We are also examining ways to enable local authorities to discount the business rate, and we will ensure that in areas where business rate supplement is considered, businesses have a proper opportunity to vote on it in a ballot.
Dan Byles
Local councils’ powers to help small businesses in their areas and to help areas in need of economic regeneration, such as the town of Bedworth in my constituency, are limited. Does the Under-Secretary agree that local councils need more powers, such as the ability to vary business rates within a borough or district to create local economic regeneration zones, to help new and existing businesses invest in struggling towns and villages?
Robert Neill
That is precisely why the Government propose to introduce the opportunity to discount the rate, to consider the way in which business rate supplement operates in an area and, above all, to ensure that, at the same time as we create the ability to attract housing into an area through our council tax incentive, we give an equal incentive—the business rate growth incentive—to provide jobs and business in an area.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Given that, regrettably, the Government are downgrading benefits to the consumer prices index rather than linking them to the retail prices index, will they be helping small businesses by linking business rates to CPI rather than RPI?
Robert Neill
The most valuable assistance that we have given is ensuring an extension of the business rate relief. Moreover, we are assisting small businesses in particular and we have increased the threshold for empty property relief this year to £18,000—all of which the previous Government signally failed to do.
Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
The Government often tell us that hard choices must be made in these difficult economic times. May I ask the Minister about port rates? The Labour Government recognised the difficult position of ports businesses that were faced with backdated rates by giving them eight years to pay. In those circumstances, how does the Minister justify spending hundreds of millions of pounds entirely wiping out the legal rates of those businesses, when other public services for which he is responsible are suffering? Is not that a pretty disgraceful piece of pork-barrelling, given that the measure is aimed at what were Tory target seats in the last general election? People up and down the country who face their services being cut will ask why that is a priority in these difficult times.
Robert Neill
I think it is a better use of money than £2 million for the furniture in Eland House, if I might say so. With respect, the right hon. Gentleman neglects the fact that his Government’s policy was roundly condemned by the cross-party Select Committee on Communities and Local Government as being wholly inadequate, and condemned by a number of his hon. Friends who represented port constituencies.
The right hon. Gentleman’s policy neglected to reflect the reality that a discount for eight years did not remove the book liability that fell on ports businesses. That drove a number of them into balance-sheet insolvency, which in turn created cash-flow difficulties with their banks and actually put some out of business. The Government are keeping jobs in port constituencies and communities, and I am very proud that we are doing so.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
5. What guidance he has issued to local authorities on the procedure for re-examination of the allocation of strategic development areas and major development areas under former regional spatial strategies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
We have already scrapped the comprehensive area assessment and regional spatial strategies, as well as removing ring-fencing from more than £1 billion of local government spending. We are currently inviting local government to identify the statutory guidance, legislation and regulations that it thinks should be removed, and we will go much further by introducing a decentralisation and localism Bill later in the year.
Stephen Mosley
One consequence of reducing the administrative burden on local councils and freeing them to take more decisions locally will be to allow them to offer different levels of services from their neighbours. Does my hon. Friend agree that far from being a bad thing, that will allow good councils to differentiate themselves from bad councils and allow local council tax payers the ultimate decision on the type of council they desire?
Robert Neill
Freedom for local authorities to respond to the priorities and needs of their residents is absolutely a good thing and is a top priority of this Government.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
But what does the Minister say to local authorities such as mine that face a larger burden of in-year cutbacks than neighbouring authorities? What does he say about the additional burdens that he has put on to them by forcing them to cut previously agreed budgets with voluntary sector organisations and local services, meaning more expensive ways of managing their budgets?
Robert Neill
First, the hon. Lady forgets the financial situation that we inherited—that is fundamental. Secondly, because we have removed ring-fencing and reduced the percentage of ring-fenced funding, we have made sure that local authorities have more flexibility in how they save money. Thirdly, despite our dire financial inheritance, we have ensured that no local authority would have to make a reduction of more than 2%.