Business Rates

I will make a little more progress, but I will give way shortly. Ministers are refusing to reconsider their decision, as we have heard. In fact, they soldiered on for months with their heads in the sand. That was bad enough for businesses that were trying to cope with the recession, but Ministers did not stop there: next down the track came the withdrawal of transitional relief. From what data there are, it is clear that some businesses were hit far more severely than people expected by the withdrawal of transitional relief, which had cushioned the impact of the 2005 rates revaluation for many businesses, but Ministers should have known about the impact that that would have. At a time when so many businesses were on their knees, Ministers again kicked away what could have been a final, extra year of transitional relief, and the impact has been huge. The FSB surveyed members in London and found that of those paying business rates, nearly two thirds faced rises of 6 per cent. or more, and nearly one in 10 faced a rise of over 20 per cent. That masks the fact that a minority in that group faces much bigger rises. I shall come to that shortly.