Our latest report, Cutting the Shops Tax: why reducing business rates for shops will boost the levelling up agenda, examines how the Government can deliver its levelling up ambitions by cutting business rates for retail.

The report includes the Levelling Up Index, a comprehensive socio-economic analysis of each parliamentary constituency in England and Wales showing the constituencies most in need of levelling up based on six key indicators.

The business rates burden (the amount of rates paid as a proportion of profits) is also calculated for each constituency, and the analysis reveals that:

• 78% per cent of the constituencies most in need of levelling up are in the North, Midlands, and Wales. 17 of the 20 places most in need of levelling up are in the North, with the remaining three being in the Midlands.

• The constituencies with the highest retail vacancy rates are overwhelmingly likely to be in the “levelling up” category in the index. In 2020, 20% of units were vacant in the North East and 17% in Yorkshire & Humber and the North West, compared to just 10% in London and 12% in the South East.

• The burden of business rates – the amount of rates paid in proportion to overall profit – is highest in those places most in need of levelling up. 72% of constituencies with the highest burden of business rates are located in areas of the country most in need of levelling up.

The report calls for the Government to reduce business rates as soon as possible, ideally being announced in the autumn Budget and implemented from April 2022.

Please click this link to view the report