Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Why scrapping business rates is a bright idea

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A worthwhile policy proposal amid the Labour conference dogfight? Now there’s a surprise. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s scheme to freeze and eventually scrap business rates, in the meantime boosting high-street survival by raising the threshold for small business rate relief and incentivising re-use of empty premises, was the brightest moment of the Brighton event.

No matter that Reeves is likely to hold her post only as long as Sir Keir Starmer holds his and that anything promised today will resemble a Dead Sea scroll by the time Labour ever returns to power. No matter also that her idea of balancing relief for bricks-and-mortar businesses with higher taxes on digital giants is sure to be defeated both by the giants’ lobbying power and by moves towards global corporate tax harmonisation.

What matters is that she spotlighted the outdated, unfair, economically damaging business rate system in a tone that was immediately welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses as ‘a gauntlet’ to which Conservative ministers must now respond. A rare example of useful opposition.

Roads to freedom

A big hello to Polish HGV drivers who enjoy The Spectator in the cab during EU-enforced breaks from the road. I bet you’re thinking: ‘A fast-track visa to the freedom-loving UK from now until Christmas, with wages equal to 50 grand a year and a cheery thumbs-up from my British chums waiting in their petrol queues? Where do I sign?’ Or perhaps not.

There are driver vacancies all across the Continent, so no obvious reasons why any would choose to come here now, and surely no ministerial expectations that a useful number will actually do so. The temporary bending of visa rules and announcement that army drivers are undergoing ‘specialised training’ for deployment to ease the fuel crisis are the hollowest form of spin, based on an assumption that the ‘crisis’ will evaporate as soon as panic tank-filling stops.

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