Clause 15
Business Rate Supplements Bill
6:30 pm
John Healey (Minister of State (Local Government), Department for Communities and Local Government; Wentworth, Labour)
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. To be honest I did not pick up that point because I thought that it was evident in what I was saying. We want to ensure a base consistency and will legislate for that threshold. The Bill provisions allow a levying authority to set thresholds that are higher than that £50,000 rateable value, should it decide that that is appropriate. The hon. Gentleman quoted accurately from the impact assessment: it does refer to England. The Bill would require Welsh Ministers to set an appropriate threshold for Wales, similar to the way in which under regulations we set a threshold of £50,000 for any BRS in England.