Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will make it his policy to ensure that NHS trusts pay an equivalent level of business rates to private hospitals.
The business rate liability for individual NHS Trusts is based, as with other non-domestic properties, on the rateable value of the property or properties they occupy, as assessed by the independent Valuation Office Agency.
A private hospital which is a charity and using their property wholly or mainly for charitable purposes may be entitled to 80 per cent rate relief in the normal way, as with all other eligible charities. Charities in the healthcare sector make an important contribution to our society and it is right they should benefit from rate relief.