Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to support small high street businesses reliant on Small Business Rate Relief.

Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) is available to businesses with a single property below a set rateable value. Eligible properties under £12,000 receive 100 per cent relief, which means over a third of businesses in England (more than 700,000) pay no business rates at all. There is also tapered support available to properties valued between £12,000 and £15,000.

The Government has no plans to withdraw SBRR, which is a permanent relief set down in legislation. As highlighted in the Transforming Business Rates Discussion Paper, the Government is interested in hearing stakeholders’ views on the extent to which the current system acts as a barrier to investment and specifically, whether the current eligibility criteria for SBRR impacts businesses' incentives to invest and expand into a second property.