Business Rates and the Recession

My diary secretary hates it when I come to these debates. I will not meet the hon. Gentleman's constituent, but I will meet the hon. Gentleman if he wants to run through the details of the case with his constituent beforehand. Having heard only what the hon. Gentleman has outlined, it is difficult for me to comment on that situation. It might be a product of the end of the transitional relief, which has dampened the increases in the business rates that his constituent was liable to pay for the past four years. We legislated for that scheme and put it in place before the 2005 ratings list came into operation, so that his constituent and any other of the 1.7 million businesses in Britain would know—because of that provision and other stable features in the system—their likely rates liability for each of the five years of the ratings list. When one is running a business, advance knowledge of a potentially significant element of overheads does not mean that the liability to pay changes, but that the ability to plan and to try to manage those pressures is improved.