UK Parliament / Open data

Beer Taxation and Pubs

Proceeding contribution from Adrian Bailey (Labour) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 28 March 2019. It occurred during Backbench debate on Beer Taxation and Pubs.

I agree with my hon. Friend. Given the increased consumption of cider and the increased tax revenues from it, I would have thought there was a case for looking at the relative taxation levels of the two drinks.

Business rates have been mentioned. I will not go over the details, but we have a ludicrous situation whereby someone who invests in their business and increases their turnover often gets a huge increase in their business rates as well. One example given to me involved somebody who took over a pub that had traded at £200,000. He raised that to £700,000 but then found that his business rates had gone from £8,400 to £37,000. He did get that reduced to £24,000, but the mere fact that he had such a big increase and that it was then revised would seem to demonstrate that the process for evaluating business rates is deeply flawed. I recognise the Government’s attempts to do something about that, but we really need a comprehensive review of business rates so that they are geared in such a way as to promote and reward investment rather than penalise it.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
657 c625 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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