Speeches by Murray.

“We have those stats here. I do not want to recite them. Dan can flick through our pack.”

“I take your point entirely. I was just clarifying that, for me, looking at the metrics, it is not simply about accepting what is being measured and changing the number associated with it. It is also about making sure we are measuring the right things.”

“Do you mean previously?”

“One thing that I have noticed about my approach to jobs I have had in the past is that—it has been in local government and city government—I am very focused on delivery and about how you make public sector organisations deliver against political priorities, whether that is in City Hall or a council before that. That fo…”

“I suppose it depends what you mean. Actual changes to the tax code have implications for the design of Making Tax Digital, because if you want to change the tax code you then have to change the MTD infrastructure and the IT architecture. The actual change itself can cause an impact on MTD in terms of developing the MTD…”

“The valuation of properties is really the foundation of how business rates are calculated. You have to have some kind of valuation there. The process of revaluation and any changes to that depend on, again, investment in the IT infrastructure and the systems of the Valuation Office Agency. We have to invest there as we…”

“Certainly, if you look at what we are debating right now in the House of Commons Chamber, the principle behind that is for it to wash its face. The cuts for retail, hospitality and leisure are paid for by the provision to increase the multipliers on properties with a rateable value of £500,000 or above. That is entirel…”

“Let us be clear what the intended consequence is. The intended consequence is to support high streets, and small independent businesses are a crucial part of the high street, but so are anchor stores, which can sometimes be part of a larger chain. A successful high street has a mix of both. I am sure all of us in our c…”

“No, but, if you look at the way that it has been structured, the threshold for having the RHL discount is £500,000, so that will cover the vast majority of premises on high streets, even pretty big ones. There is then the small business rate below £51,000, which is obviously much, much lower, but that really is for the…”

“It is worth me being very direct and saying there are no plans to reform council tax, but there is a challenge process for individuals. If someone is a neighbour and they think they are in the wrong band versus a neighbour or someone on the same street with a similar property, there are existing processes where people …”

“To be honest, because we do not have any plans for it, it is not really on my radar.”

“That is a good point. As we know, HMRC is a statutory supervisor within the regulations. It supervises around 36,000 businesses. It has quite a significant role to play there. One of the questions for me is making sure that HMRC continues to regularly check the resourcing levels for its role in anti-money laundering to…”

“HMRC, it is probably worth saying, has a tremendous amount of data. In conversations I have with other Government Departments, there is a great desire to use HMRC data for other goals. There are protocols about what data you can share. There are legal gateways about what basis you can share it on, but I very strongly s…”

“This review might have been before my time.”

“That is an interesting point. Certainly, in terms of any new systems or new ways we are interacting with taxpayers, part of the process is to digitalise what exists already. Anything new would be digital by default. That data collection would be expected to be at the best possible level. We need to think about what dat…”

“Part of the programme ahead of the April 2026 introduction of the £50,000 threshold is to focus on what support businesses need to get ready for it. That will take consideration of some businesses and some individual taxpayers doing it without much difficulty and others requiring more support, help or guidance to make …”

“The crucial bit of data in that decision was about claims. When I am discussing this in other debates in the Commons, there is a point to be made about the difference between the value of farms and the value of claims. That is where some of the confusion has arisen in terms of people thinking there is data that says di…”

“The crucial data was available around the claims, the distribution of claims in different value bands and understanding that.”

“It starts in April 2026, so that will be set out ahead of then. I very much expect it to be digital.”

“It is not online. There will be some questions to answer. We can assume that it will be a digitally-led process for registration, but I can update the Committee in due course about what we are considering in terms of minimising the burden, while also making sure it is an effective process.”