Budget will help high street keep up with web rivals
The Government will announce a wide-ranging review of the business rates paid by 1.8 million retailers in England to see how the 30-year-old system can be modernised
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Your support makes all the difference.Hundreds of thousands of struggling high-street retailers will be promised a boost in their fight against online competitors in this week’s Budget.
The Government will announce a wide-ranging review of the business rates paid by 1.8 million retailers in England to see how the 30-year-old system can be modernised.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, will also use the Budget package to detail extra investment in the North of England to help build an “economic powerhouse” stretching in the region. It will include plans to develop a single travel card across the North, similar to London’s Oyster card.
Mr Osborne insisted there would be “no giveaways, no gimmicks” in the Coalition’s last economic package before the election. He insisted it would be aimed at fostering a “truly national recovery”.
The review – to be detailed by Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury – will examine the annual rates paid on 1.8 million business premises. One of the key questions it will examine is how to even out the disparity between companies hit by the property tax and those which trade online.
Mr Osborne also confirmed his final Budget will give five million pensioners with existing annuities the right to cash them in from April next year. It will give them the same opportunity to access their retirement funds as the Chancellor announced last year for people who had not taken their pensions.
Mr Osborne shook hands over appearing in a televised election debate with Ed Balls after his opposite number “sprung an ambush” at the end of BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show yesterday.
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