To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment has been made of the merits of extending the current empty property rate relief scheme beyond April 2010. (317078)

An impact assessment will be published shortly alongside the statutory instrument that will extend the empty property rate relief exemption threshold.

Our reforms to empty property relief are principled and right for the long-term. They provide a strong incentive on owners to bring empty property back into use, helping to improve access to premises for businesses and so to exert a downward pressure on commercial rents.

However, we provided owners with real help to manage short-term pressures in a difficult property market by exempting all empty properties with rateable values up to £15,000 from business rates in 2009-10.

We have listened to the continued concerns of owners and we are extending the temporary measure for a further 12 months—to cover the whole of 2010-11—and we are uprating the threshold to £18,000 in line with the general movement of property values at revaluation.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) how much empty property rate relief has cost the Exchequer since 2007; (317112)

The amounts of empty property relief granted in 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 and the amount forecast to be granted in 2009-10 are as follows:

Data are as reported to Communities and Local Government by all billing authorities in England on the annual National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) returns.

The figures given are the net empty property relief granted in that year irrespective of the year to which the empty property relief related. It can also include the repayment of non-domestic rates where empty property relief should have been granted in previous years but was not.

In 2008-09, the rules governing empty and partly occupied property relief were reformed by the Rating (Empty Properties) Act 2007 and further reforms were introduced for 2009-10.

Our reforms to empty property relief are principled and right for the long-term. They provide a strong incentive on owners to bring empty property back into use, helping to improve access to premises for businesses and so to exert a downward pressure on commercial rents.

However, we provided owners with real help to manage short-term pressures in a difficult property market by exempting all empty properties with rateable values up to £15,000 from business rates in 2009-10.

We have listened to the continued concerns of owners and we are extending the temporary measure for a further 12 months—to cover the whole of 2010-11—and we are uprating the threshold to £18,000 in line with the general movement of property values at revaluation.