Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Seema Malhotra on 2015-12-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will publish his Department’s analysis of the effects of proposed changes to business rates retention and the local government grant on the income of local authorities.

Mr Marcus Jones

The Government intends to move to 100% business rates retention in England by the end of this Parliament. We have confirmed that as part of the new system there will continue to be redistribution of local tax revenue between authorities and protections in place for authorities that see their business rates income fall significantly. Over the coming months we will be working with local government on the details of the scheme. Ahead of final decisions, it is too early to assess what the impact will be on local areas or authorities, but before the start of the financial year, local authorities in England estimated that the total business rates income for 2015-16 would be £23.1 billion.