Non-Domestic Rating (Preparation for Digital Services) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-05-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): This is probably the easiest summing-up that I have experienced so far in the Chamber. I thank the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—first, for turning up and, secondly, for making incisive comments about this short Bill As we know, this is paving legislation to enable the Government to deliver on their commitment to link the local authority business rate system to HMRC digital tax accounts so that businesses can manage their rates bill in one place alongside other taxes. As I think should be clear from what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), we fully understand the Government’s wish to modernise the administration of business rates for the 21st century, and we fully understand that linking the local authority business rates system to HMRC digital accounts will make it easier, simpler and less burdensome for businesses to understand and pay their business rates. Nevertheless, as I am sure the Minister would acknowledge, there is some way to go before that aspiration can be achieved and little of the detail of the new system is yet known The Bill provides HMRC with the ability to undertake the planning, consultation and testing that is needed to truly inform the design of the new service, and in their factsheet the Government say they will engage locally with local government and the business sector in developing detailed proposals and seeking views. It would therefore have been really useful today for the Government to have provided more detail on how they intend to go about this; we have simply no idea about the detail of how they will take this forward. There is a money resolution but absolutely no idea of the costs of digitising, and it would be helpful to hear something from the Minister about the costs that will be incurred The Minister made it clear that the measures in this Bill are to be compatible with the 100% business rate retention system the Government are aiming for, but we need to stop for a moment and explore this further, because there is a real risk under the 100% business rate system of dividing the country further between the haves and have-nots, the wealthiest areas and deprived areas, the south and the north. So can the Minister confirm that councils, particularly those affected by austerity, will not lose out under this system As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton said, since 2010 there has been a massive £16 billion-worth of cuts—a reduction of 60p in every pound for some councils—and the Centre for Cities found in January that the poorest areas have borne the brunt of council spending cuts. As a result of these cuts, councils have had to make £7 billion pounds of savings to adult social care, with less being spent on early intervention, libraries, youth services and so forth. In fact, these services have almost disappeared in some local authorities. So it might have been helpful for the Government to set out at the same time as this Bill how they see the whole of the local government finance system progressing in the future—for example, by having more information about the fair funding review and whether the Government will agree to independent scrutiny of the system and its implementation to test whether it actually is fair We know, too, that the current business rate system is broken, and we need firm proposals from the Government to ensure business rates are not an impediment to tackling regional inequalities in the way they are at the moment.