Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what specific steps she is taking to support (a) Post Offices and (b) convenience stores with the rising cost of living.

Our business rates package announced by the Chancellor in the Autumn Statement will help the high streets and small businesses. This comes after the Government reversed the Health and Social Care Levy, enabling smaller firms to reduce their National Insurance bills even further by increasing the Employment Allowance.

Furthermore, on 9 January, the Government announced the Energy Bills Discount Scheme. Under the new scheme, eligible non-domestic customers receive a per-unit discount to their energy bills during the 12-month period from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, subject to a threshold level of £107/MWh for gas and £302/MWh of electricity. This scheme followed the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which ensured business were protected from excessively high energy bills over the winter period.

Additionally, in April 2023, Post Office made improvements to postmasters’ remuneration, including increasing payments for banking deposit transactions by 20%. This is in addition to improvements made by Post Office in August 2022.