'We should listen to Tom Kerridge': Kemi Badenoch tells LBC the PM should abolish high street business rates
Conservative leader also suggested that the UK should be more 'competitive' on VAT
Kemi Badenoch has told LBC that the PM should abolish high street business rates - and listen to warnings from celebrity chefs like Tom Kerridge.
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She told LBC that ministers are "all over the place" on business rates - and suggested the UK should be more "competitive" on VAT.
Covid-era business rates relief is due to end in April - leading to much higher costs for many firms.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle is said to be listening to concerns from worried businesses about their rates skyrocketing.
It comes after the celebrity chef, Tom Kerridge, urged the PM to look at a VAT cut.
He told LBC yesterday some of his restaurants are facing a 100 per cent hike from the rates they are now.
And Sir Keir Starmer told LBC yesterday that he's looking at "further support" for the sector - including extra licencing freedoms for pubs.
The Treasury has insisted the policy remains in place, and that there will be no changes to the business rates policy, after announcing £4.5billion in transitional relief at the Budget.
Ms Badenoch welcomed the suggestion from the prime minister that there could be a change, but added: “I welcome what the prime minister has said, but the Treasury has rushed out to say what he said is not true.
"We don't know what's going on. They are all over the place.
"A prime minister who says one thing and then U-turns later.
"Even Labour MPs don't know whether they can trust him.
"I'm on the high street today because I'm backing business. Our policy is to abolish business rates for the high street. If they're paying £110,000 or less, that's the kind of thing that'll get Britain working again.”
On Mr Kerridge's calls for a cut to VAT, Ms Badenoch hinted that the government should look at that too.
She told LBC: “I think we should be competing with European nations and doing better. Right now, we have a lot of the most entrepreneurial, youngest dynamic people leaving our country because they think that it's too hard to start and run a business.
"So, we should listen to what people like Tom Kerridge [are] saying and try and make sure that we create the right conditions for growth.”
Labour MP Rachael Maskell told LBC last week that the high street will “collapse” without changes to an “excruciating” rise in business rates.
The MP for York Central said she is "pleading with the government" to "bring around proper reform of business rates".
Rachael Maskell told LBC: "I look across York and it is excruciating the rises which people will see to their business rates.
"The problem has been that we've seen the revaluation coming at the same time and that's just pushed people over the line and certainly to the edge."
She added: "The business community have got many, many ideas of how that can be done in a fair and proportionate way, but certainly not one that puts such demands on businesses that traders are saying that their doors will not be able to sustain this increase."
In the Autumn Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that a new business rates system will be introduced from the next financial year.
This will see rates multipliers lowered for retail, hospitality and leisure firms – funded by higher rates on larger commercial properties, including warehouses.
It also means that firms with larger premises, like storage companies and supermarkets, will be hit with a property tax rise.