Daisy Cooper

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the jobs tax has been damaging. I say to Treasury Ministers that the combination of the jobs tax and higher business rates bills will have a profound impact on the very small businesses on our high streets, and our high streets are critical to our communities. Most ordinary folk do not follow the statistics on growth, unemployment, GDP and everything else; when they walk out their front door and look at their high street, they decide how they would answer the question, “Is the economy working in our area?”. It is so vital that we support our high streets. On that point, I genuinely urge Ministers to look again at the multiplier for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. They talk in a very technical way about one element of the bills and continue to say that the rates are coming down. They have come down by 5p for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, but Ministers gave themselves the power to reduce them by 20p. However, businesses heard “lower business rates”. They did not think about the technicality of how the rates are calculated; they just heard the word “lower”, and made decisions on that basis—but bills are now higher, and they are really struggling. I have said it before, and I will say it again: we cannot tax our way to prosperity; we have to grow our way to prosperity. We hope very much that, as Ministers move ahead on this debate, they not only reform the OBR and Budget process, so we have more transparency in this House, but think again about going for growth with Europe.