Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Cabinet Office – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 15 May 2024.
Rebecca Evans
Labour
2:10,
15 May 2024
I'm really grateful to Vikki Howells for raising that, and I know that she's been talking to businesses in her local area a great deal, and they have been expressing concerns about those gaps between revaluations. That's one of the reasons why we're introducing, through our local government finance Bill, three-yearly rolling revaluations now for businesses for non-domestic rates. We think that three years does give that balance between certainty for business, but then also reflecting more up-to-date and current market conditions. So, three years is the number that businesses and their representative bodies have been telling us that they would welcome. I think that that's a particularly positive part of our reforms that we're undertaking.
The 2023 revaluation was surprisingly smooth, so I think that we can take some comfort from how well that revaluation went. We were able to provide, of course, some transitional support for businesses that saw an increase in their Bills, but when we do have this cycle of more frequent revaluations, we should see a little less churn.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
A proposal for new legislation that is debated by Parliament.
