Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond
Chancellor Philip Hammond has confirmed plans to spend £1.5 billion on the UK’s high streets as part of his Autumn Budget statement. The funding is comprised of £900 million in business rates relief for nearly 500,000 small businesses, plus £650 million for the transformation of high streets, transport and infrastructure improvements, building restorations, and potential changes to planning rules to allow shops to be converted into homes and offices.
The new package is particularly aimed at helping small town retailers and high street businesses, with Hammond announcing business rates relief for firms with a rateable value of less than £50,000 will be cut by a third. “The high street lies at the heart of many communities and it is under pressure as never before,” he commented. “If Britain’s high streets are to remain at the centre of community life, they will need to adapt. Today, we support them to do so.”
The news was treated with caution as British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “While we welcome the temporary support being given to small businesses, these measures alone are not sufficient to enable a successful reinvention of our high streets. Retailers are currently in the midst of a perfect storm of factors – technology changing how people shop, rising public policy costs and softening demand. Rather than tinkering around the edges, struggling high streets require wholesale reform of business rates in order to thrive. The issue remains that the business rates burden is simply too high.”
Hammond’s Budget also detailed a narrowly-targeted digital services tax due to go live in April 2020, targeting technology giants operating in the UK. The tax will only apply to profitable businesses within the tax’s scope, such as online retailers that earn at least £500 million in global revenue. With Amazon included in that bracket, Hammond has estimated that the two per cent tax on UK revenue will raise over £400 million a year.
