Business Rates

I will not. The now-departed Secretary of State was, to use a phrase, too busy rocking the boat and deciding how to knife her incompetent Prime Minister. She is off the playing field now, but has since admitted that she could not even get that decision right. Businesses all over Britain are going bust every day and thousands of people are losing their jobs, but the right hon. Lady disgracefully and perversely prioritised her own political interest above her vital Government role on business rates. In conclusion, many businesses are fighting for their lives, yet the Government have sleepwalked into a business rates fiasco that has tipped many businesses over the edge into insolvency. I am thinking of family-run businesses, often built up over years, whose failure has a catastrophic effect on household income and worklessness. They are all paying the price for the Government's utter incompetence and inward-looking myopia on business rates. The Government have turned their back on businesses' cry for help, but we will not. Businesses may not have a vote, but if they did, they would surely vote to consign the Government and their shambolic attitude towards small businesses to history.