Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information the Valuation Office Agency holds on the number of hereditaments there are with the (a) 227 Public Houses/Pub Restaurants (Inc. Lodge) (National Scheme), (b) 226 Public Houses/Pub Restaurants (National Scheme), (c) 234 Restaurants, (d) 238 Roadside Restaurants (National Scheme), (e) 409 Cafes, (f) 500 Cafes/Restaurants Within/Part of Specialist Property, (g) 060 Clubhouses, (h) 061 Licensed Sports, Social and Private Members Clubs, (i) 062 Coaching Inns, (j) 303 Bars (Valued on Floor Space) and (k) 199 G Night Clubs and Discotheques special category code in each local authority.

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is responsible for assessing all non-domestic properties for business rates purposes and determining each property’s rateable value (RV). Non-domestic properties are assigned a special category code (SCat), as a descriptor for different categories of property.

For transparency, the VOA publishes official statistics on the number of properties recorded in each Scat by local authority area. These can be found on VOA’s ‘Non-domestic rating: stock of properties, 2024’ statistics page on gov.uk, under ‘Stock SCat Tables by region, county, local authority district and rateable value band, 2024’ table ‘SOP_SCAT_LA_counts_all’.

The VOA also publishes the total RV by Scat and local authority area in table ‘SOP_SCAT_LA_rv_all’. The data published in these tables can be used to calculate the average RV.

The VOA does not calculate business rates bills or hold data on average business rates charges. The responsibility for the billing and liability of Council Tax lies with the local (billing) authority.