The government’s decision to remove the obligation to pay business rates from more than 300,000 companies will not help those who need the most support, a lobby group chief has claimed.
Delivering his 2010 Budget announcement this afternoon, chancellor Alistair Darling said business rates will be cut for one year from October for more than half a million small businesses in England. Some 345,000 will pay no rates at all.
But while he welcomed the action as a step in the right direction, Phil Orford, chief executive of the Forum of Private Business, called the approach was "too scattergun".
"Basing the cuts on the rateable value of premises means even the most successful and wealthy businesses on small industrial estates and the high street will get the same benefits as the most needy," he said. "We would rather have seen something more targeted."
Orford commented that with ongoing concerns about small business owner's ability to access rate relief already in place, it was important that the new cuts are "automatic and do not involve the small business owner having to do anything".
Eileen Lawson, secretary general at the National Hairdressers' Federation, added: "While the reduction in business rates can be applauded, the applause at this stage can only be muted because members do not know yet the effect of ending the transition rate and the result of the revaluation exercise."
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