3. Will the Minister explain how the awarding of discretionary business rate relief can support small and medium sized businesses? OAQ54311

Local authorities can use discretionary rate relief to reduce the non-domestic rate bills for businesses and other ratepayers where they consider it will have the greatest local impact. Welsh Government has provided an additional £2.4 million to local authorities in 2019-20 to deliver discretionary relief.

Thank you for your answer, Trefnydd. You've previously talked about, and your predecessors have talked about, reforming the business rate system in Wales. When it comes to business full rate relief, properties, of course, with a rateable value of up to £12,000 can benefit from rate relief in England, but in Wales that figure is just for business properties with a rateable value of up to £6,000. Can I ask you to provide an update on what progress is being made with regard to the work on reforming business rate with regard to supporting small and medium-sized businesses, so that when it comes to the rateable value they are on an equal footing and not disadvantaged because their businesses are located in Wales rather than over the border in England?

Thank you for raising this issue. I think it's important that the thresholds that we have here in Wales reflect the Welsh tax base. Our scheme reflects the fact that rateable values here in Wales—the average rateable value—is much lower than across the border in England. I think in Wales we're looking at average rateable values of £33,000, whereas over in England I think we're looking at in excess of £50,000. So, it is important that our schemes here in Wales reflect the different situation that we have here in Wales. But that said, we are doing some work that looks at the potential reforming of business rates in the future. We're also looking in parallel at potential reforms to council tax in future. So, we're looking at both of our local taxes to see how we can potentially improve them for the future. We're expecting a mid-term report on the work in terms of non-domestic rates around October and I'd be happy to provide some kind of outline as to what the early findings of that are.FootnoteLink I had a good discussion this morning with the Welsh Retail Consortium. They're really interested in that piece of work, and I'm keen to engage their expertise in terms of getting an understanding from them if they feel that the research is taking us in the right direction. But everything I do in terms of tax, non-domestic rates—as we look to reform and change things, I want to do it collaboratively and in an open and transparent way, so I'd be happy to discuss things further.

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