Extracts from committee stage (Lords) of the Non-Domestic Rating
(Lists) (No. 2) Bill Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]:...The comparison of
overheads in terms of business rates is stark. In my own town of
Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire, an average-sized shop on the main
street with 30 square metres of floor space is paying at the rate
of £250 per square metre, resulting in a rates bill of around
£3,750 per annum. A large Amazon warehouse adjacent to a nearby
town in Yorkshire has 40,000 square...Request free trial
Extracts from committee
stage (Lords) of the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2)
Bill
(LD) [V]:...The comparison of overheads in terms
of business rates is stark. In my own town of Cleckheaton in West
Yorkshire, an average-sized shop on the main street with 30 square
metres of floor space is paying at the rate of £250 per square
metre, resulting in a rates bill of around £3,750 per annum. A
large Amazon warehouse adjacent to a
nearby town in Yorkshire has 40,000 square metres of floor space.
The rate per square metre for this giant in the retail sector is
£45 per square metre. This results in a business rates bill of
£900,000 per annum. If Amazon as an example—there are
others—were required to pay at the same rate as this smallish shop
in a small town centre in West Yorkshire, its rates bill on this
warehouse alone would be £5 million per annum. That is why attempts
to save our high street will fail unless this hugely unfair
advantage enjoyed by online retailers is addressed—hence the
amendment from the Liberal Democrats...
(CB) [V]:...This amendment includes reference to
the ability of high streets to compete with online. It is an
often-discussed subject, and the urgency of rebalancing the rates
burden could not be more pressing. The noble Baroness, Lady
Pinnock, mentioned Amazon I saw in today’s Times an
appalling reference—appalling to me, anyway— that £1 in every £20
spent on retail is spent through Amazon I assume this was a
reference to last year, or to the last accounting year.
Amazon, of course, is a giant, but there are
hundreds of online retail businesses and we are right in the midst
of a massive societal transfer of shopping habits from the
traditional shop or store in or out of town, in or out of a covered
shopping centre, to online. Covid, of course, has forced that rate
of change to accelerate faster than it otherwise would—but it was a
concern many years ago...
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Extract from Commons
statement on Covid-19: Vaccinations
(Chatham and Aylesford) (Con) [V]: I join
others in congratulating the Minister on the incredible,
world-leading roll-out of the vaccine—I would have expected nothing
less from my brilliant friend and colleague. May I reinforce the
plea from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham
() for a Medway vaccination centre, for all the reasons
he gave? Perhaps it would be helpful if we could meet the Minister
to discuss that in more detail. My PCNs are doing a phenomenal job
in racing through the top four priority groups, but at present they
do not have access to IT systems, such as Outcomes4Health and
Foundry, that would enable them to analyse and plan properly. My
understanding is that access was promised but might not have
happened universally, so could the Minister reassure the House that
this is being rectified urgently to support the next and larger
phase of vaccine roll-out?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and
Social Care (): I add my thanks to those of my hon.
Friend for the relentless determination of her excellent local PCNs
to vaccinate the most vulnerable. I would be very happy to meet
colleagues to go through in detail the plan up to mid-February,
which is our target, and beyond. I am also happy to take away her
PCNs’ specific concern about data sharing. Our mantra in the team
is to make as much data available as quickly as possible, when we
know that it is robust and actionable, so we will look at her point
about Foundry and Outcomes4Health to ensure that we can share that.
I want to get to a stage where every PCN can track its order, in
the way we track an order from Amazon We have reached basecamp,
but we have a big climb ahead of us to vaccinate the whole
nation.
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