Business Rates

Debate between Simon Danczuk and Mark Spencer

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Simon Danczuk]

That is absolutely right. The failure to run the appeals process successfully is damaging businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises.

As if that were not bad enough, out of the blue, with no notice given, the Government then told us that they had decided to stop the 2015 business rates revaluation and carry it out two years later. There was no consultation with business, no detailed discussion of how the policy might affect economic growth, no consideration of how the policy might prevent the economy from being rebalanced along geographical lines. The British Property Federation’s chief executive says that the move

“embeds injustices in the current system”,

and the British Council of Shopping Centres says that it will have a “very negative impact” on the high street. Those organisations are big figures on the distressed retail property taskforce, which the Government are backing, yet Ministers will not listen to them.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. One issue on high streets in my constituency is that landlords are having to pay business rates on empty properties and therefore do not have the cash to invest in those properties in order to attract new tenants. The previous Government introduced that system. Does he acknowledge that it might have been a mistake?

[Simon Danczuk]

That is an interesting point about empty property taxes. I will not address it in my speech, but it undoubtedly deserves examination and should be investigated further to see what impact it has on businesses.

Let me make it clear: I have yet to hear a single retail voice supporting the Government’s proposal to cancel next year’s revaluation. The Minister seems to think that he is right and everyone else is wrong. If he can identify somebody who supports the revaluation, I would be interested to hear who it is.

To put it bluntly, the business rates revaluation postponement is no way to do government. The decision to postpone next year’s revaluation of business rates has compounded the sense of injustice already felt by retailers and other businesses. To add insult to injury, the Minister has defended the policy by saying on radio that it is simply like being locked into a fixed-rate mortgage. What he did not tell radio listeners is that it is like a fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate set at more than 40% for many customers. The Government must think that businesses are daft. Current business rates are based on rents that were set close to the property boom peak in 2008. Since then, property prices have fallen by up to 40% in many parts of the north and elsewhere in the country.