7. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the Welsh Government's policy on business rates in Wales?

Llywydd, a permanent small business rate relief scheme will be implemented from 1 April 2018. Plans for the further development of non-domestic rates include reviewing the appeals system and tackling fraud and avoidance. 

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I was actually very pleased to see included within your budget £1.3 million for local authorities to use to provide targeted relief to support our local businesses. However, the similar scheme in 2014-15 that should have provided similar support to our businesses actually did support some businesses at a total cost of £2.765 million, yet this represents just a 79 per cent take-up of the overall package of £3.5 million. This has been put down to the fact that there was complexity of guidance and tight timescales for application for these needy businesses. Going forward this year, how will you ensure that the time frames for local authorities and businesses to then be allowed to apply for those grants will be reasonable so that we can actually see 100 per cent take-up of this money that is specifically allocated for those businesses in need?

I thank the Member for the question, Llywydd. I was pleased to be able to provide what I know is a small sum of money in the grander scheme of things, £1.3 million, to local authorities to bolster their ability to provide discretionary relief to businesses in their own areas. The way in which I've tried to answer the dilemma that the Member has posed is in making that money available for local authorities to apply in that discretionary way with their own knowledge of local needs and circumstances. I think local authorities are in a better place to be able to use that very targeted amount of money to respond to businesses whose circumstances aren't captured by the larger schemes that we have in the non-domestic rates field and by not tying the money down with a lot of extra rules and regulations to give local authorities the flexibility, I hope, to be able to respond rapidly and sympathetically to businesses where there is a proper case for doing so.