At the event, which also featured hustings from four of the city’s prospective parliamentary candidates – current Cambridge MP Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat); Chamali Fernando (Conservative); Rupert Read (Green) and Daniel Zeichner (Labour) – Danny Alexander launched a wide-ranging review of national business rates, which he said would pave the way for changes to how businesses across England pay the tax.
The review, set to report back by Budget 2016, will examine the structure of the current system which is paid annually on 1.8 million properties in England. The review will look at how businesses use property, what the UK can learn from other countries about local business taxes, and how we could modernise the system so it better reflects changes in the value of property. He urged Cambridge businesses to visit the government website and contribute to the review.
“I believe local authorities should take greater control of business rates locally,” he said, and outlined a pilot scheme which would allow local authorities to retain 100% of additional income. “We want to pilot this new approach and Cambridge is one of the leading contenders,” he added.
More than 200 people registered for the cross-network event, organised by Cambridge Network in conjunction with One Nucleus, Cambridge Wireless and Cambridge Cleantech. Supported by RealVNC and chaired by its founder and CEO, Andy Harter – who is also Chair of the Cambridge Network – it was held to launch the Business Weekly and Cambridge News business awards, which take place this week.
As Cambridge Network steps up to provide a focus for promoting Cambridge internationally, the event also saw a preview by Claire Ruskin, Cambridge Network’s CEO, of a comprehensive new Cambridge Cluster Map – being developed by Trampoline Systems with the University of Cambridge Centre for Business Research - which is scheduled to be available next month. Claire thanked John Gourd of Johnson Matthey for stepping in to chair the hustings, and Lily Bacon of RealVNC, who had been instrumental in bringing Danny Alexander to the event.
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