Business Rates

  • Business rates are due to go up in April, to bring them in line with current rental values. This means that small and medium size businesses and shops in areas of high rental value, ie, London and the south east for example, are going to face disproportianate rises in their business rates. It is reliably reported that many such businesses will go bust, causing jobs to be lost and enterprise stifled.

    There must be alternative ways to business rates and there should be a wide-ranging and objective discussion about what some of these ways are and what are the best ones. These ideas must them be considered by politicians before the new, potentially unfair system is introduced.