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607 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDUK Convergence ProgrammeNoble Lords have asked some very specific questions. I will follow the injunction of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and seek to address them as best I can. If my noble friend Lady…09 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesLet me refer to a quote from the British Retail Consortium. It looked at this situation, and said: “We fail to see how adding additional new taxes to the industry is really going…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesThe overall strategy, if the question is about business rates, is pretty straightforward: we collect about £25 billion in business rates, about 25% of which comes from the retail…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesThose businesses to which the noble Lord refers will have benefited from corporation tax falling from 27% to 19%—it is due to go down to 17%. It is also one of the reasons why,…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesThat is why the Chancellor took the action that he announced in 2018 and why potentially 90% of businesses can claim the retail discount that we announced for the next two years.…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesThe land value option was looked at in the review in 2016, which I talked about earlier. The review concluded that a land value tax would also result in anomalies and problems.…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesWe have looked at that area, and the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government is looking at this precise time to see what can be done. We have to remember…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesThere is a social value there, and significant steps are being taken on the purely financial side—the retail discount and the small business rate relief apply to eligible…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesMy noble friend looked at this area when she was Commercial Secretary to the Treasury. As a result of that review in 2016, a number of changes were made that had a significant…08 Apr 2019HANSARDRetailers: Business RatesMy Lords, business rates are an annual tax on non-domestic property. Bills are based on rateable value, which represents the annual rent the property would achieve if let on the…08 Apr 2019HANSARDFemale EntrepreneurshipThat was a particular focus of a report done by Vince Cable when he was Secretary of State. It was carried out by Lorely Burt MP, now the noble Baroness, Lady Burt. He came out…03 Apr 2019HANSARDFemale EntrepreneurshipIndeed, that was one of the things which Alison Rose brought out, as she is doing in her present role, particularly in the finance sector. I pay tribute to my noble friend for…03 Apr 2019HANSARDFemale EntrepreneurshipI would be happy to do that to expand but, briefly, the thought was that one of the barriers was in female access to venture capital. An interesting study on that identified bias…03 Apr 2019HANSARDFemale EntrepreneurshipI am certainly happy to go with the noble Lord on that. He points out, rightly, that the report says that there are 1.1 million fewer women setting up their own businesses…03 Apr 2019HANSARDAccess to CashThat is partly within the role of the Payment Systems Regulator, although not entirely. On the point about cash and Link machines, Link is a network of banks that supervise these…03 Apr 2019HANSARDAccess to CashMy Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the mutuals. The noble Lord is right that a situation is emerging where people, particularly the most vulnerable, are seeing access to cash…03 Apr 2019HANSARDAccess to CashMy Lords, the Government are committed to safeguarding access to cash while supporting digital payments. Last year, we launched a call for evidence on cash and digital payments in…03 Apr 2019HANSARDAccess to CashI am happy to undertake to do that. At the same time as I write the noble Lord, Lord Low, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.03 Apr 2019HANSARDAccess to CashThere are limitations that arise from the changes in the way that people access their financial services and cash. We are seeing contactless overtaking debit cards as a way of…03 Apr 2019HANSARDAccess to CashWe are still studying the report, which came out fairly recently and contains a lot of data and material. The Link network went to countries such as Sweden, where the proportion…03 Apr 2019