Business Rates Reduction Services

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jesse Norman

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for having secured this important debate on a matter that is of considerable public interest generally, but also locally in his constituency and to those affected by this company. It is a pleasure to speak in a debate that is not disfigured by party politics; all Members have made very constructive contributions, and I am grateful for them.

I will start by expressing my sadness that, inevitably, proceedings elsewhere in this House at the moment are going to be overshadowed by this very important consideration of business rates. I only hope that the media will find some time to indulge Mr Cummings in his comments in between reporting on this vital topic. In a slightly more serious vein, I apologise that the Government have not been able to supply a Minister with specific responsibility for this area to respond to the debate. As the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) rightly said, its focus is not on business rates—although there has been the occasional attempt to crowbar the rest of the business rates system in—but on the reduction services aspect that my hon. Friend raised. That aspect is a matter of business regulation, and therefore falls to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) have also focused on some individual cases of predatory practice by specific companies, and they will understand that I cannot comment in any detail on specific cases. It would set a very bad precedent for a Financial Secretary to do so, given the connection to the tax system in a different context.

I think Members recognise that, at its core, the system of business rates is a relatively simple and straightforward one. Companies and individuals who occupy non-domestic properties are liable for business rates. The rates bill is the product, in the literal, mathematical sense, of the rateable value of the property and the multiplier for the financial year concerned, offset by any rate reliefs. The rateable value is set by the Valuation Office Agency and, broadly speaking, it is the rental value at a set date —presently 1 April 2015.

In cases where businesses are unsure about the rateable value of properties, there are plenty of helpful resources on the website of the Valuation Office Agency. For example, I can go online and see a detailed valuation of No. 2, Marsham Street, which is the headquarters of the Home Office, and an explanation for how its valuation has been reached. You will be pleased to know, Mr Hollobone, that it has rather a high valuation, as befits its position in central London.

If ratepayers are unhappy with their rateable value, there is an online system known as check, challenge and appeal, which allows them to check the facts and, if necessary, to dispute the valuation that has been reached. This system was introduced to provide ratepayers with a service that is easier to use and understand than its predecessor and that enables quicker resolution of cases. An evaluation of the system last year found that it is working and that ratepayers are getting their cases resolved faster, without the automatic need to make appeals.

Rate reliefs are applied by individual local authorities, but most of these are automatic or require minimal information from the ratepayer. For example, transitional relief, which is used to phase in the effects of revaluations, is entirely automatic. For small business rate relief, rate- payers need only provide a little information about other properties on which they pay business rates, before being able to claim. All rate bills must explain the various reliefs available, and local authorities have many excellent websites that explain how to claim those reliefs.

Much of the £16 billion of relief that the Government have provided to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors in response to covid-19—this was picked up by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—has been applied automatically to rates bills. So there are many automatic methods of applying reliefs currently within the system. The relevance of that to the present debate is that there is no reason why a ratepayer should have to use an agent to claim rate relief. If they believe they are eligible for relief, they should instead contact their local authority. Of course, that is not in any sense to criticise people who have been found to be clients or would-be clients of the predatory organisations that have been highlighted by Members in the debate.

Let me pick up on the nature of some of the protections that exist within the system, of which there are several. One is the rules that apply to business-to-business contracts and that arise from the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, which prohibit advertising that misleads traders. There is also the Misrepresentation Act 1967, which may also apply to business-to-business contracts, and which says that if someone has entered into a contract following misrepresentation by the other party, they would be entitled to rescind that contract. Additionally, if they have suffered loss, they can claim damages against the other party.

Small businesses can seek help through other channels. If a ratepayer feels that there may have been illegal or fraudulent activity, they can choose to take court action, as I understand a number of businesses have successfully done in at least one of the cases under discussion. Alternatively, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned the Insolvency Service, which offers some protections, although they appear not to have been availing in this case.

It is worth just picking up the point about consumer protections. At present, the services are provided to the businesses that I have described, and consumer protections do not apply in the case that we have described. I note, and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton has argued, that microbusinesses share many of the characteristics of consumers, and he and other Members have therefore argued that they are worthy of protections in their own right. Members have highlighted the predatory practices of the companies they have discussed, which are, I am afraid, also exercised by a relatively small number of other companies, and cause extreme distress to the people who are affected by them.

It is important to note that, in other markets—for example, financial markets—it has proved possible to differentiate between protections afforded to different kinds of people in the client relationship. Therefore, there is a clear case here for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to revisit this area and to assess what further protections can, in principle, be provided. Let me conclude with a very simple message.

[Stella Creasy]

I hesitate to stop the Minister in full flow, because it is very interesting to hear what he is saying. I just want to come back on a point he made about businesses being entitled to rates relief automatically. Of course, that does require businesses to know about that. I agree with him, and I think we all agree, that differentiating between businesses—often small businesses —and consumers does not make any sense in terms of the expectation of protection, which is the reason why we have consumer regulations.

However, might he be convinced that it would be helpful in these instances for Government to be proactive in telling people that they might be entitled to rates relief? One reason why this company has been able to exploit people is a lack of awareness of the scheme. Although the Minister may feel that it is relatively straightforward, for a new business, the idea that there might be some things that do not have to be paid and others that do adds complexity. Is there a case, perhaps, in the absence of the further consumer protections we are talking about, for requiring local authorities, when they send a bill, to say, “Most small businesses would be entitled to rate relief, and therefore it is worth your time investigating”?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I have already said that all rates bills are required to explain the various reliefs available and that local authorities have, in many cases, excellent websites that explain how to claim the reliefs. Of course, the fact that reliefs in the cases I have described are automatic means that they flow through in and of themselves. That is a very attractive feature, where that can be engineered into the system. Where it cannot, it is for good reasons, and it may not be possible.

I do not think it is right to suggest—I do not think anyone who has participated in this very thoughtful debate would suggest—that there is any easy fix here, but there is a clear case to be addressed. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton for bringing it to our attention and for raising it with the Government. I think the Government—across my colleagues and myself—need to consider what more can be done, both by themselves and in their further discussions with local authorities.

Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I am very interested in my hon. Friend’s suggestion. It is not squarely a Treasury matter—it is more an industrial strategy and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy matter—but I would be delighted to meet her on the topic.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

May I associate myself with my many colleagues in remembering our dear lost friend Jo Cox today? On 11 May, the Prime Minister told us:

“If people cannot…get the childcare that they need, plainly they are impeded from going to work, and they must be defended and protected on that basis.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 29.]

A survey by Pregnant Then Screwed shows that 71% of women trying to return to work in the next three months cannot do so because of childcare. So will the Minister set out exactly what he is going to do to protect and defend those women from redundancy and discrimination in the workplace?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I have not seen the survey that she describes. but I will look at it and discuss it with the Minister for Equalities, my colleague the Exchequer Secretary. Of course there can be no shying away from this issue and if it is as the hon. Lady describes, we will look closely at it. I thank her for that.

Co-operatives and Mutuality

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jesse Norman

Thursday 30th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

It is a disappointment that UKFI has not published its thinking on that even in outline. The calculations are not enormously complex. There is, of course, a further political issue, which has to do with the return of cash to the public Exchequer at a time of extreme economic crisis, but one still hopes that something of the form of the mutual ethos can be retained in the new organisation when it is ultimately sold.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wonder whether, like me, the hon. Gentleman is disappointed that the Government have not considered the proposal for a payback to the taxpayer. Perhaps he will join me and other co-operatively-minded MPs to challenge the Chancellor to re-examine the issue, because of the benefits that could accrue from the mutualisation of Northern Rock.

[Jesse Norman]

I am not absolutely sure I understood the thrust of the hon. Lady’s intervention. It seems to me that there is an important issue in relation to the publication of the decision that has been made. It is quite right that there should be a public justification of the decision not to proceed with the mutualisation. One would like further progress to be made on retaining the mutual ethos. I am not sure how much further work there is to be done on it.

[Stella Creasy]

I am afraid I have a foggy head, but my mind is clear on this. The Co-operative party has submitted a proposal to the Government about paying back and the mutualisation of Northern Rock. I ask the hon. Gentleman again whether he will combine with me and other co-operatively-minded MPs to press the Chancellor to respond to that document, which he has not yet done.

[Jesse Norman]

I am afraid I have not the foggiest clue what paying back means. To whom will something be paid back, and out of what, under the proposal?

[Stella Creasy]

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is worth considering models of remutualisation for Northern Rock, which would examine the payback to the taxpayer through the remutualisation process, he will meet us to look at how to progress that, and not lose the opportunity that mutualising Northern Rock would present.

[Jesse Norman]

I am of course happy—if this is what the hon. Lady is asking—to meet her and other Co-operative MPs to discuss that, so that I can understand the proposal better. I do not know whether the hon. Lady was present when I intervened earlier, but there is a clear financial problem to do with the capital structure, the taxpayer value and the sustainability of a model that has a large vendor note sitting in it from the Government—that is a form of loan—and substitutes public ownership of equity with public ownership of a loan, which may be no more stable for less return. There is a genuine economic issue, and that is what we need to engage with.

I hope that we can come together as a House and a community of MPs, in a bipartisan way, to promote co-ops, change our public culture, develop and spread the co-operative ethos, and encourage the Government to push ahead with all the work they are doing so successfully, so far, in this area.

Big Society

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jesse Norman

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate and I am pleased that the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who unfortunately is not here, secured it.

Many hon. Members have set out the historical traditions behind this debate, but I come at it from a slightly different angle—as a psychologist analysing participation, the proposals that have been put forward for the big society, and the evidence base. From that angle, it seems that we start with a puzzle. In the points put forward by Government Members about the problems that they have experienced with public services and regulation, there is nothing to suggest that the removal of the state and the propagation of the voluntary and private sector will always achieve better results. Nor have we have seen any evidence about what shape the commissioning may take at either local or national level, and who will make the decisions or participate in that process.

Above all, many Labour Members, and I believe some on the Government Benches, wonder how a concern for increasing social activism fits with a Government who want a cut in spending in and of itself. That appears to many of us to be not so much nudging as shoving people into volunteering through a cut in public services, and that is likely only to destroy the social fabric with which we are all concerned. It is not often that I find myself on the same side as Phillip Blond, but we agree that making radical change is hard at the best of times and near impossible at times of extreme austerity.

I come to the big society, then, not with stories of jobsworth local officials or quotations from Burke, or perhaps even Paine, but with a more fundamental problem facing the Government. It is impossible to ally a Conservative ideology—the prejudice that personal liberty and the role of markets are undermined by collective action—with the recognition that when people work together to fund, run or do something, it has the power to change the world.

With that in mind, I wish to set out four problems that I see with the big society, and an alternative proposal based on the principles of fellowship that I see emanating from the left. The four problems are simple. First and foremost, it is a process-focused philosophy, and as such its purpose cannot be set out. Secondly, its shows a misunderstanding of the nature of contemporary voluntary sector organisations. Thirdly, it shows a misunderstanding of the nature of modern communities and communal bonds, and fourthly, it takes no account of the lives that people lead or the willingness of the public to engage.

The question of purpose goes to the heart of political ideologies and public office. The big society, as currently articulated, seems to be very much about processes, not purposes, so it is about the process of volunteering or social action rather than the ideas behind it. Fundamentally, therefore, it cannot tell us what explains or sparks volunteering. A vague sense of shared interest and neighbourliness is not enough to hold and sustain involvement. Anybody who has had neighbours that they have not got on with, or been in voluntary organisations with people to whom they would not necessarily send a Christmas card, can explain that to us.

[Jesse Norman]

I think that is quite wrong. There is a large literature—I am sure that, as a psychologist, the hon. Lady is aware of it—showing that people are happier and live healthier, more contented, longer lives when they are able to link with other people and exercise compassion. The big society draws on such emotions, and it is simply nonsense to say that there is no substance behind it. Her own discipline contains a vast amount of evidence for it.

[Stella Creasy]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s passion for the subject, but if he lets me continue, he will hear that I am not saying that there is no substance behind it. I am saying that by not setting out the purpose of the big society, the Government leave themselves open to acknowledging a whole range of volunteering activities that they may not want to support. Taken to extremes, for example, the Ku Klux Klan and the English Defence League would be seen as wanting to bring people together for a particular purpose in their local community, but I am sure that none of us would want to promote such organisations and their values.

[Jesse Norman]

One marvellous thing about the set of ideas behind the big society is precisely that it is not subject to any overwhelming social purpose. A purpose for society, and a plan to put it on a purposeful basis, is a recipe for totalitarianism.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman and I therefore disagree about the value of purpose. I believe that purpose, and particularly people coming together with a common bond and for a common purpose, is how we get social change to happen. That is where there are disagreements between us about the value of the big society.

[Jesse Norman]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

I am going to press on, because I do not have much time.

We on the left have always understood that for any organisation to work, it needs a sense of purpose and a common goal. It needs to know what it is trying to achieve, not just how it will try to achieve it. People can then be brought together around that current goal.

That leads me to my second point about why purpose is so important in the big society. It seems to me that in the points that are being made about it, a whole series of objectives are conflated, whether democratic engagement or increasing volunteering. We all understand that volunteering is not the same as voice, but the conflation of more meetings at a local level with encouraging more people to volunteer and looking to commission more within the voluntary sector seems to reflect a lack of purpose.