10 January 2012
Alok Sharma welcomes the Local Government Finance Bill which will incentivise local authorities and local government to encourage growth. He calls on the Government to ensure that local authorities can not raise business rates on already struggling businesses.
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con): I welcome these reforms, which will incentivise local authorities and local government to encourage growth, but will the Secretary of State confirm that they will not allow some local authorities to raise business rates on already struggling businesses?
Mr Pickles: I am happy to confirm that fact to my hon. Friend, because he raises an important point about local businesses needing a degree of certainty. Of course, the Secretary of State—the person holding my position—will set the multiplier and the sum.
There is something strange about all the objections, some of which we have heard already, in that they betray a lack of faith in the people whom we represent. No one area has a monopoly on the formula for growth. Economic success is not a southern phenomenon.
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Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con): I welcome these reforms, which will incentivise local authorities and local government to encourage growth, but will the Secretary of State confirm that they will not allow some local authorities to raise business rates on already struggling businesses?
Mr Pickles: I am happy to confirm that fact to my hon. Friend, because he raises an important point about local businesses needing a degree of certainty. Of course, the Secretary of State—the person holding my position—will set the multiplier and the sum.
There is something strange about all the objections, some of which we have heard already, in that they betray a lack of faith in the people whom we represent. No one area has a monopoly on the formula for growth. Economic success is not a southern phenomenon.
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