Business Rates

I will come later to the fact that we have listened to what the ports have said. My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (John Healey), listened to what was said about the liability and changed the system so that the payment back is now spread over something like eight years. I do not know whether the hon. Lady is committing her party's Front Benchers to completely abolishing any responsibility for liability, and I do not know how that would be paid for, but I shall come to the changes that we have made. On top of what happened in 1990, since 1997 we have introduced measures to improve the system further, including the small business rate relief scheme, which provided more than £260 million a year of help by 2007-08. There has been some mandatory relief, particularly for community amateur sports clubs, and the business rates deferral scheme will allow 1.6 million businesses to defer liabilities totalling about £600 million this year.