To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what his latest estimate is of the take-up rate of small business rate relief in each local authority area. (323033)

The report “Small business rate relief—improving evidence on eligibility and take-up: Methodology”, published on 9 December 2009, provides details of the methodology to estimate take-up of small business rate relief. This methodology can only be applied nationally for England as a whole. Therefore it is not possible to calculate an estimate of take-up for each local authority. This report is available at:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/local government/smallbusinessmethod

However, new experimental statistics on the number of hereditaments claiming small business rate relief (SBRR), published on the Communities and Local Government website on 25 February 2010, show that 462,000 hereditaments in England were benefiting from SBRR on 31 December 2008.

By applying that figure to the eligibility estimates made for the 2005 rating list it is estimated that around 80 per cent. of eligible hereditaments in England were claiming SBRR in 2008-09—see table 1.

Relief granted to small businesses has been increasing since SBRR was introduced—from £202 million in 2005-06 to £298 million in 2008-09. This represents a real terms increase of 34 per cent. This suggests that 92 per cent. of the maximum amount of relief that could be claimed is being taken up, up from 69 per cent. in the first year of the scheme—see table 2.

This statistical release is available at:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/sbrrfeb2010

The report “Small business rate relief—improving evidence on eligibility and take-up: Methodology” will be updated to take account of these new numbers.