Key events
Kemi Badenoch is speaking in central London at the moment and is expected to say that Andy Burnham is “still thinking like the mayor of Manchester”.
“Going by what he’s announced so far, Andy Burnham’s ambitions for Britain are too small,” she was expected to say.
We’ll have any interesting news lines from the speech here but in the meantime you can follow along via the video below:
Chancellor says government will back businesses that have “felt really squeezed”
Chancellor John Healey has promised to back UK businesses that have “felt really squeezed”.
Addressing business leaders in central London on Thursday, Healey said:
My message to British businesses is quite simple: to British businesses, to British innovators, to British investors: I will back you as your Chancellor, and I’ll back you in financial services, in technology, in retail, in industry, in all parts of the economy.
Like households, firms have been feeling a “lack of a breathing space,” he said, adding:
I’m just as concerned about the cost of business as I am about the cost of living.
Healey set out his priorities as chancellor as he told businesses they were “the engine of growth and confidence in this country”.
At the London event, he said his priorities were five-fold: fiscal discipline and ensuring “we meet our fiscal rules with a buffer against uncertainty”; growth in every postcode; backing Britain by “buying British as a government at all levels”, driving wealth creation by raising the levels of investment, innovation, confidence, and of profit in British-based businesses; curbing the cost of living and the cost of doing business.
Healey said he wanted to step up the Treasury’s “support for and work with business” and deepen the relationship.
However, a hotel owner has said that the 20% cut to business rates “won’t make any material difference” after the rates were re-evaluated and increased for some in April.
Asked about the new policy, Steve Perez, who owns two hotels, both including a pub and a restaurant, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Our business rates went up to about 130% [in April].
So this tiny, well, obviously it’s welcome £1,000, but this won’t make any material difference to any pub.
And it’s interesting to know that they haven’t talked about restaurants and hotels because bear in mind most pubs these days serve food, many pubs also have accommodation.
And we’ve had increases in national insurance, we’ve had the EPR, the tax no one’s ever heard of – extended producer responsibility.
And it’s a little bit like the supermarkets putting up the prices and then saying they’ve reduced them.
Tina McKenzie, the policy chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, welcomed the proposal, but said it must be a “downpayment” on further action to help small businesses more broadly at the next budget.
She added:
Failure is not an option.
We are encouraged at the signal from the prime minister today, instructing his government to plan for a significant increase in small business rates relief at the heart of the next budget.
This would deliver on promises made campaigning for the role, and fix the damage caused by business rates decisions that sent bills up and are holding back SME growth and jobs in every postcode.
The cut in business rates has been welcomed by the Music Venue Trust, which acts to protect, secure and improve UK grassroots music venues, and called for the same relief to be offered across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Chief executive Mark Davyd said:
MVT warmly welcomes this announcement from the government, and its recognition that grassroots music venues are essential to our local communities.
The 20% additional reduction on Business Rates from April 2027 is an encouraging first step in a range of opportunities available to Andy Burnham’s new team to not just protect and secure live music, but begin to restore its central role at the heart of our towns and cities.
There remain some issues of implementation of previous reliefs, and we will work with colleagues in government to ensure that all grassroots music venues in England are recognised and eligible.
Davyd called for similar action in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, adding:
We call on Senedd, Holyrood, and the Northern Ireland Assembly to swiftly confirm they will match this much needed support through Barnett formula consequentials. Venues in Wales, Scotland and England must be confident of a level playing field of economic conditions for touring across the UK.
Live music is an ecosystem, and we strongly urge the government to reconsider the limit to the eligibility criteria so that all live music spaces of all sizes qualify, supporting jobs, local economies and communities to access live music.
Reynolds also said she would welcome Gary Lineker and other UK-based millionaires increasing the amount they pay into public coffers after they called for a wealth tax.
But she would not be drawn into whether Andy Burnham’s government will consider what they are asking for. She said:
Well, look, it’s day four of this new government, and obviously any major tax changes would be announced at a budget.
I welcome the fact that people of good means are saying that they want to pay more. They can pay more.
There is a link on gov.uk, but look, we have to look at tax policy in the round, and we only make major tax announcements at budgets.
Burnham’s business rate cuts are ‘fully funded’, says Treasury chief executive
Chief secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds has insisted plans to cut business rates for hospitality venues are fully funded when put to her that the changes to rules for vape shops and online marketplaces due to pay for them are described as being in review and consultation.
She told Sky News:
This is fully funded, and it will be funded in a couple of major ways. Firstly, by looking at business rate reliefs on businesses that cause social harm, such as vape shops, and secondly by cracking down on those online businesses who are not paying VAT.
She added:
I am confident as chief secretary, having looked at the numbers, and we will set out the numbers in more detail at the budget, that we will fund this announcement in the ways that I’ve just mentioned.
There may be additional measures that we look at as well, but it is those two principal ways that we’re going to fund this business rate relief.
Iain Hoskins, owner of Ma Pub Group in Liverpool, said that an extra 20% relief on business rates would go some way to “chipping away” at the rising cost but cast doubt on how many venues would be covered by the change.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The worry has been, obviously, in recent years, I mean, when our venues from last year to this current year got revalued, we saw increases of between 100% and 150% on the rates that we pay.
So that just goes to show how much they went up by. And while 20% – particularly if that 20% is on top of the 15% and other help that’s there – that can be very meaningful for businesses, independent businesses such as mine; I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but the increases were so huge last year that now we’re sort of chipping away at some of those increases.
He added:
We’re not actually … getting better value than we had before. We’re still having to find extra money for these business rates. But you know, it is a relief that actually some of that is mitigated quickly. 20% isn’t an insignificant figure.
Andy Burnham said it was time to support vanishing “cherished local spaces” with his business rates reduction.
The prime minister wrote on X:
I’m giving thousands of pubs, clubs and music venues a 20% cut in business rates.
I won’t stand by while these cherished local spaces disappear, replaced by boarded-up windows and ‘For Sale’ signs.
They’re the heart of our communities and it’s time we backed them.
Burnham cuts business rates for pubs, clubs and music venues in England by 20%
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
Andy Burnham will cut business rate bills for pubs, clubs and live music venues in England by 20% from next April.
It is the latest announcement from the new prime minister to support local high streets – his latest measure to tackle costs for working people and communities.
Burnham said the £100m package would be fully funded including through reviewing reliefs for businesses that do not make a positive contribution to communities, such as vape shops. He said:
For too long, governments have stood by while cherished venues have disappeared from our local high streets. So today I am changing that.
This government will back the businesses that people want to see in their communities. I said I would protect pubs and local high streets – the beating heart of our communities – and that’s what we will do.
The cut will benefit nearly 32,000 pubs, clubs and live music venues, according to the government, saving the typical pub an estimated £1,100 in the next financial year. The support will be targeted so that the very largest live music venues are not included.
Hospitality groups are expected to welcome the plan, which they have argued will create much-needed certainty for businesses that want to invest, grow and create jobs, at a time of growing financial pressures.
Other cost of living announcements this week – capping bus fares at £2 and cutting VAT on electricity bills – have prompted questions about how they will be paid for, with the new administration under pressure to set out the detail of its proposals more fully.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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The new chancellor, John Healey, said the government would return to its commitment to overhaul the wider business rates system, including small business rates relief, at the budget.
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Ministers also plan to crack down on businesses that sell through online marketplaces but do not comply with their tax obligations, putting them at an unfair advantage over those that do, and is consulting on measures to make those marketplaces more responsible for this.
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Burnham announced that the government would cut VAT on electricity bills, reducing them by an average of £45 a year from October. This would be funded, officials said, by his decision to scrap the digital ID scheme.
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The prime minister also announced he would reduce the fare cap from £3 a journey to £2 next year, funded mainly by changing international climate donations into repayable loans.
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Burnham is immersed in a deepening political row after ordering a review of plans for the early release of thousands of killers, rapists and sex offenders from prison in September.
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Victims of crime have accused ministers of making “cheap jokes” about releasing prisoners early after Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood were caught on camera “ribbing” about the scheme.
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Scottish Labour’s rivals in Holyrood have slammed Anas Sarwar’s shock decision to resign as leader to sit in Andy Burnham’s new government, calling him a “chancer” and accusing him of lying to voters.
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The Conservatives have asked HMRC to investigate whether Nigel Farage should have paid tax on the £5m gift he received from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
