Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride has accused the government of breaking its manifesto promises on business rates.
He told GB News: “They said that they were going to make it fairer, and they said one of the ways they would make it fairer is to apply business rates, surcharge, extra business rates, to those online businesses operating from big warehouses, and therefore reduce the pressure on smaller High Street businesses.
“Well, we’ve looked into the numbers now from the official data, and quite the opposite has happened. In fact, only about 11% of those businesses suffering the surcharge are these online warehouses. The rest are retailers and hotels and zoos and clubs and sports stadiums and so on and so forth.
“I’m afraid the level of business rates under this government is really going up through the roof, and so many of these high streets are now really suffering from this, plus the National Insurance increases, plus the changes in the employment legislation that’s making it riskier and more expensive to employ people. You add those things up, and it’s no wonder that they’re struggling.”
On criticism that the Conservatives failed to invest adequately in defence, he said: “We went through a particular phase from about the late 80s when the Berlin Wall came down, and we all in the West actually benefited from what people called the peace dividend. And spending generally on defence eased back on where it had been before.
“In the final sort of stretch of our time in office, actually, we were investing more in defence. So we had very clear plans for this. But what the companies do, in terms of your point about intercontinental ballistic missiles, clearly, the challenges in defence terms that we’re facing are changing incredibly rapidly, and we’re seeing that in the Ukraine war, not least because of fairly low cost munitions, like drones, the use of AI and so on.
“We have to adapt our kind of the kind of resources that we have in the defence area, and that’s why we need this defence investment plan that the government promised last September, we still do not have that to know even what we’re looking at in terms of what we need to invest in.
“But as I say, you need a strong economy to be able to defend our country, and I’m afraid that is not what we’ve got under this government.”
