Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the BRC's Retail Sales Monitor, published on 11 May; and what steps they are taking to reduce the shop vacancy rate.

In order to mitigate against a rise in the number of vacant units, the Government has introduced a range of measures to protect businesses that are struggling to pay their rent due to Covid-19. The moratorium on commercial landlord’s right to forfeiture for the non-payment of rent (Section 82 Coronavirus Act 2020) is extended to the end of June 2021. Landlords are also prevented from using winding up petitions and statutory demands to pursue rent debt and the use of Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery (CRAR) has also been suspended, both extended until 30 June 2021.

In order to help inform the Government’s strategy to exit these protections, and to gather evidence on the progress of negotiations regarding rent debt between landlords and tenants, a Call for Evidence was launched on 6 April. This closed on 4 May and the Government will make an announcement on future policy ahead of 30 June 2021.

We continue to reduce the financial burden on retailers by providing eligible retail, hospitality, and leisure properties in England with 100% business rates relief until 30 June 2021. This will be followed by 66% business rates relief for the period from 1 July 2021 to 31 March 2022, capped at £2 million per business for properties that were required to be closed on 5 January 2021, or £105,000 per business for other eligible properties.

We have introduced reforms to the use classes to enable more flexible use of existing buildings. These came into force on 1 September 2020. The use class reform creates a new ‘commercial, business and service’ use class which encompasses a wide range of uses which will attract people to high streets and town centres. This includes offices and other business uses, shops, cafes, gyms and any other uses which are suitable in a town centre. The new class also allows for mixed uses to reflect changing retail and business models. These reforms will help support high streets and town centres as they seek to recover from the economic impact of Covid-19 Businesses will have greater flexibility to change use without planning permission, allowing them to adapt and diversify more quickly to meet changing circumstances.