AGAINST a backdrop of falling business confidence, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is urging politicians at Stormont to protect what it describes as “one of the best pro-business policies to emerge from the Assembly”.
The FSB lobbied successfully for the introduction of Small Business Rates Relief (SBRR) in 2009,and each year since then the Executive has protected this relief for smaller businesses that sees them paying less in their property rates.
But some are now calling for the smallest businesses to have this relief taken off them simply to pass it to certain sectors, with no evidence around either the damage its removal could do, or any notional benefit that the recipients might gain.
FSB’s head of external affairs Roger Pollen said: “The Executive has done good things for smaller businesses over the last number of years by introducing then extending and maintaining the SBRR. It's been one of the best pro-business policies to emerge from the Assembly.
"But any plans to go in the opposite direction here, and start adding to the rates bills of smaller businesses in an attempt to ‘pick winners’, is very unwise. Do we really want to see the rates bill for our local florist, or funeral directors or baker doubled, simply to try to cushion other sectors?"
He said there is wide agreement that the rating system for non-domestic properties needs to be overhauled.
"But at this point, when business confidence has slid into negative territory for the first time in four years, and we all face into the uncertain headwinds of Brexit, we need the Executive to ‘do nothing’ with this issue and allow businesses to have some certainty around their plans,” Mr Pollen added.
Earlier this month FSB gave evidence to the Stormont finance committee on the issue and encouraged it to look more imaginatively at how to use the rating system to remove barriers from start-ups and scale-ups, highlighting evidence that shows the start-up rate in the rest of the UK to be 50 per cent higher than in Northern Ireland.
