Speeches by Murray.

“Making sure that we have the right protection in terms of cyber‑security is absolutely crucial for the trust in the system that we mentioned earlier and, as you mentioned, Dame Siobhain, in terms of making sure that the basic service is there and that people can get that. One thing that the modernisation and reform sub…”

“I do not think that anyone in the world can put their hand on their heart and say that it will never happen. I can say that the efforts that we are making are to do everything possible to protect HMRC’s data and the system, to make sure people have trust in it. It is something that, as I say, I value very highly, with …”

“It is a key part of the spending conversations that we are having. It is not something that we will let slip, because we need to focus on that basic, foundational IT infrastructure.”

“I am sure you have read the Transforming Business Rates discussion paper. You have it there, excellent. You will see what the scope of our ambition is in terms of reforming business rates and making sure there is a new system that is fit for the 21st century. Now, as you say, there is obviously some stuff which we have…”

“Yes.”

“Yes, the consultation is happening right now. There was a deadline of people registering for the intense consultation process, if you like. That deadline was in November. That was where people who had a particular interest needed to let us know so that we can build them into a very structured process of engagement with…”

“It is in due course.”

“Certainly our ambition is to keep reforming the system over the course of this Parliament.”

“You are tempting me to give a very specific timetable here.”

“I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the consultation. Some of what we will say next in terms of our next steps will depend on the consultation. It is a meaningful consultation to talk to the business community about what would make the biggest impact for them in terms of what we set out and, indeed, see if they ha…”

“The fundamental principle of having a property tax for businesses is one that we will maintain. The idea is not to get rid of property‑based tax for businesses and have something entirely separate. That is actually a steer that businesses gave us directly.”

“No. This is anecdotal, but what I felt they were less keen on is us tearing up the system and starting something totally different. They would prefer to see step‑by‑step change that they were involved with, and that is really the way that we are approaching it.”

“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…”