Date: 2023-04-24
Victoria Atkins: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The House may have spotted that I am not in as  full voice as I normally like to be. I promise that is not because I have been participating in the activities that I understand are going on outside in Parliament Square. I hope the House will understand if I do not take quite the number of interventions that I generally like to when opening a debate. I believe that all of us across the House recognise how important business rates are to council budgets and the funding of core services. This year alone, business rates are set to raise more than PS20 billion to fund vital services, from adult and children's social care to refuse collection. However, business owners have raised concerns about the impact of this tax on their ability to stay competitive. That is why the Government have delivered and will continue to deliver on our commitment to reform business rates. In the autumn statement, we announced substantial immediate support to help businesses adapt to the 2023 business rates revaluation. Today, we take another major step forward, turning our attention towards longer-term reform with the Non-Domestic Rating Bill. It will ensure a business rates system that is more flexible, transparent and fair. Before I set out what the Bill delivers, I remind the House of the steps we have already taken to improve the business rates system. From April 2023, we have updated all rateable values for non-domestic properties, reflecting changes in the property market. The revaluation ensured a fairer distribution of bills between online and physical retail. On average, bricks-and-mortar retailers saw decreases of around 20%, but we did not stop there. In the autumn statement, we announced a support package worth almost PS14 billion over the next five years to support businesses. We have frozen the business rates multiplier this year--a PS9.3 billion tax cut over the next five years--we have increased the retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme from 50% to 75%, supporting around 230,000 properties, and we have removed unpopular downwards caps from the transitional relief scheme, ensuring that businesses immediately see the benefit of falling bills. Turning to the Bill, business owners have been clear that a more frequent revaluation cycle would be extremely helpful. In place of the current five-yearly cycle, the Bill will implement a three-yearly cycle. The most recent revaluation took effect from this April, so the next will take place in 2026 and it will happen every three years thereafter. I understand that colleagues will ask, "Hang on a minute. Why every three years, rather than annually or every two years?". The reason is that this single measure is a significant shake-up of the business rates system. An initial three-yearly cycle ensures that the Valuation Office Agency has the capacity to deliver these important reforms. I reassure the House that we will of course keep the system under review, with the aim of going even further if we can. We are implementing a new duty for ratepayers to provide the VOA with information that supports valuation. That will be submitted through a new, simple online service. It brings business rates in line with wider tax practice, and it is a crucial first step towards going further on the frequency of revaluations in the future. We will make the valuation process clearer by increasing the transparency of the VOA's work. The VOA has already delivered some improvements, but the Bill will allow it to go even further and provide more accessible information to ratepayers on how individual valuations have been reached.