To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many businesses in (a) London, (b) Hounslow borough and (c) Brentford and Isleworth constituency have used the small business rate relief scheme to date.

As at 31 December 2010, the latest date for which data are available, local authorities reported there were 61,100 businesses in London, benefiting from the small business rate relief scheme. Of these 1,280 were in the London borough of Hounslow.

Data were collected on the annual national non-domestic rates (NNDR1) forecast return completed by all billing authorities in England.

Data are collected at billing authority level; we do not collect data at constituency level. The data are collected at a fixed point in time and represent the situation at that time. We do not collect data on the total numbers that have benefited from the scheme over time.

We estimate that approximately half a million business in England are benefiting from the small business rate relief scheme. As the Government has currently doubled the level of small business rate relief we estimate that approximately a third of a million ratepayers are currently paying no rates at all.