If a week is a long time in politics, then 24 weeks – the period that has passed since we published The Road to Reform – must be the retailer’s equivalent of an aeon.

If a week is a long time in politics, then 24 weeks – the period that has passed since we published The Road to Reform – must be the retailer’s equivalent of an aeon.

Much has happened since we launched our ideas for reforming business rates. Back then the idea of conducting major – and in my view, life-saving – surgery to one of the highest forms of local property tax in the EU was subject to intense discussion and a large dollop of scepticism.

Yet over this period we’ve witnessed an ever-louder cacophony from retailers, manufacturers, SMEs and parliamentarians, all calling for the same thing: ‘wholesale’, ‘comprehensive’, ‘fundamental’ reform. Call it what you will, the consensus has now been established and the challenge is for politicians to breathe new life into the rates system.

Helpfully, the case for reform was boosted in the Autumn Statement, which set a 2% cap on business rates rises and discounts for certain retailers’ rates bills, suggesting that the immovable necessity for fiscal neutrality doesn’t seem quite so sturdy after all. 

Countless submissions to the Treasury’s review on how to reform the administration of business rates mean the Chancellor and his team will be in no doubt of the general agreement that has now formed: fundamental reform must be the only game in town.

“The consensus has now been established and the challenge is for politicians to breathe new life into the rates system”

Helen Dickinson, Director-general, British retail Consortium

Short-term tax pyrotechnics or worse still, mere tinkering around the administrative edges, would be counter-productive.

Interestingly, a recent Populus poll found that 80% of MPs also want fundamental reform, while as many as 93% recognised that reform was important for the future success of high streets and town centres.

We are now asking the political parties to commit to reviewing rates through the lens of fundamental reform after the next general election, going beyond the narrow framework of the administrative review. As the political parties busy themselves with drawing up their manifestos, they need look no further than the BRC’s own Manifesto Milestones, which was published last week, for how to reform the rates system. In it we set out four vital principles of fundamental reform.

These are: The total amount of business rates should be reduced; Business rates should flex with overall economic performance as other taxes do; Business rates should be shared equitably across different industries, and; The system should have positive incentives such as encouraging energy efficiency.

Those parties that sign up to reform in the coming months will undoubtedly win the hearts and minds of not only the nation’s shopkeepers but all those other industries that suffer from the current system’s inequities.

Meanwhile, retailers will continue to make the case to politicians that reform is mutually beneficial as the next government tries to rebalance the economy, secure more investment and remove the disincentives to operating in our high streets and town centres.

Time to get on with the job then.

  • Helen Dickinson, Director-general, British retail Consortium