Business Renewal
Back the firms thathold towns together.
A high street is small firms: the café, the garage, the family shop. When they close, the town hollows out. Most of what squeezes them is set by the state: the tax on their premises, the price of their power, whether big customers pay on time, and where investors put their money. Pick a pressure and see it.
Figures checked 27 Sep 2026England and UK, as markedSources
See it
Understand it
A small firm does not choose the tax on its premises, the price of its electricity, whether its biggest customers pay on time, or how easily it can raise money. Those are set by policy, and by rules that could be enforced. Business rates are charged on property before a penny of profit. British firms pay the dearest non-domestic electricity among the UK and the EU14, and the smallest struggle most with their bills. Late payment ties up billions already earned. Equity investment gathers in the capital.
Each of these is a lever the state already holds. Pulling them is how a town keeps the businesses that give it life.
Fix it
Reform business rates
Revalue more often, keep the lower rates for shops, pubs and leisure, and move the tax towards the value of land, so the high street is not taxed out.
The trade-off
Rates raise £27.6bn a year in England, so relief for one group has to be paid for elsewhere.
Enforce late payment
Pass and enforce the Commercial Payments Bill: payment terms capped at 60 days and late-payment interest made mandatory, with an enforcer that has teeth.
The trade-off
Large customers will push back on tighter terms, and enforcement needs funding.
Cut the cost of power for small firms
From April 2027 over 10,000 energy-intensive manufacturers lose three electricity levies. Extend relief to small firms, and bring down the wholesale price for everyone.
The trade-off
Levies removed from bills are paid for somewhere else, by taxpayers or other bill payers.
Sources and method
- MHCLG · National non-domestic rates collected by local authorities in England, 2025 to 2026 (22 July 2026): £27.6bn.
- HM Treasury · Effects of the retail, hospitality and leisure multipliers and the high-value multiplier (November 2025): from April 2026, 38.2p and 43.0p in the pound for retail, hospitality and leisure; 50.8p for properties with a rateable value of £500,000 or more, including about 1,900 large distribution warehouses.
- DESNZ · Quarterly Energy Prices, June 2026: average non-domestic electricity prices, including taxes and levies, were highest in the UK among the UK and EU14 in July to December 2025.
- Ofgem · Businesses' experiences of the energy market 2025 (May 2026): 26% of sole traders and microbusinesses struggled with energy bills in 2025, against 12% of large businesses.
- GOV.UK · Electricity bill cut for 10,000 manufacturers (16 April 2026): three levies removed from April 2027, worth up to £600m a year.
- London Economics for DBT and the Office of the Small Business Commissioner · Late payments research (July 2025): an estimated £26bn owed in late payments at any one time; around 14,000 business closures a year, about 38 a day.
- GOV.UK · Commercial Payments Bill overview (19 May 2026) and House of Lords Library (27 August 2026): a 60-day cap on payment terms and mandatory late-payment interest of 8% above base rate; the bill is before Parliament.
- British Business Bank · Small Business Finance Markets 2025/26 (17 March 2026): gross bank lending to smaller firms rose 9% to £68bn in 2025; the real stock of lending was £185bn, against £193bn in 2019.
- British Business Bank · Small Business Equity Tracker 2026: London-based smaller businesses took 57% of UK equity investment in 2025, and 48% of deals.
Business rates figures are for England, where the tax is set by Westminster; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own systems. The electricity comparison is from the June 2026 edition of Quarterly Energy Prices; the September edition, due in the last days of September, updates the international tables.