Speeches by Baldwin.

“The problem is that the November Red Book stated: “The high street will benefit from permanently lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure”. Businesses up and down the land think that was entirely misleading. We have had briefings to the newspapers that there will be a change, but the Minister is saying …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I start by offering my gratitude to Robert and Helen, the two petitioners who—forgive the phrase—lit the fuse for these petitions to get the number of signatures they did, and enabled this debate today. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley …”

“The Chancellor said yesterday that she did not appreciate what the impact would be. I just wondered whether her officials had given her—”

“That additional relief was because they had been told that this could be a problem.”

“What are the numbers on that?”

“Mr Russell, you are the person responsible for the overall organisation. You sent a great big data file somehow to Ministers for them to work out what the impact would be in terms of the Budget. Did you at any point flag that this was a huge increase by historic standards and they might want to take it into account? Di…”

“Was part of that process saying, “By the way, Chancellor, you are looking at a political problem here because this is a huge increase for this sector”?”

“Your predecessor used to like to shut down the phone lines for the public with little notice and try to force everyone to use the app and digital paths. I presume that is still part of the strategic direction that you want to take things. Can you update us on how that is going?”

“We know that it is an issue.”

“I have one final question for Mr Marks, if I may, on the small consignments changes that you are bringing in. You said that, because of operational reasons, you are making that quite a long implementation lead time. You will be aware that the EU is bringing in the changes a year earlier. We raised Northern Ireland earl…”

“Thirty‑two per cent?”

“Did you flag to your Minister in advance of the Budget that 32% was a big hike compared to previous hikes and that therefore there might be a political issue coming out of this valuation when you combine that with withdrawing the covid-era support? Did you flag that?”

“So you are not proposing any changes at the moment.”

“There are online marketplaces that offer to help you collect that VAT. Can you update us on where you have got to on that?”

“Another fraud that the Public Accounts Committee has highlighted is in online marketplaces and people setting up fake UK companies for VAT purposes. I know that you have done a consultation on that. Can you update the Committee on where that has got to?”

“This time it seems to have taken people hugely by surprise. The pub association is saying that vast amounts of additional beer needs to be sold in order to make this economic. This time around did you find that more pubs and hospitality businesses were seeing a sharp increase than in a normal revaluation and, if so, ho…”

“If you could kindly follow up by writing to the Committee about the details on that case, that would be helpful.”

“It does seem like a huge increase, does it not?”

“There are quite a lot of other things that are not related to this particular sector. I have been told by Eurotunnel that its rateable value went up from £40 million in 2023 to £118 million in 2026. These just seem to be enormous changes. The other thing that has been flagged to me by a range of different sources is th…”

“I would like to ask Mr Russell about business rates because there are two things going on that have given pubs and hospitality businesses a nasty shock at the Budget. One is the policy decision about the withdrawal and tapering of the covid support, but the other is around the valuation of those premises, which, Mr Rus…”