Business Rates and the Recession

My hon. Friend is right—all the surrounding evidence supports his point. Again, it is worth noting that the Local Government Association—a cross-party body—has identified exactly the same problem throughout the country and in all sectors as my hon. Friend identified in his constituency in the hospitality sector. In the south-east of England, a public house has experienced an increase from £1,800 to £6,600. Elsewhere, different sorts of businesses, even small ones, are experiencing increases—from, for example, £10,500 to £31,500. That is a triple increase—impossible for people to bear under current circumstances. Not only small businesses are affected. Some large organisations in our main town and city centres are also badly affected. One of the large metropolitan councils has reported examples of bills increasing from £37,000 to £123,000, and from £36,000 to £203,000. Such increases are not sustainable. My final example is not even the largest in gross or percentage terms: it is an increase from £567 to £17,096. I speak with feeling about that, because as some hon. Members may know, many years ago my mother ran a small shop. When we looked at the situation each year to ensure that things were kept going, we needed a reasonable projection of what the increases might be. However, no one can be expected to keep their head above water in the current climate with those sorts of increases.