Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Katie Mansfield on fighting for the small businesses of Hampstead and Highgate

Small businesses are at the heart of our communities.

From independent shops and cafés to restaurants, professional services and creative businesses, they create jobs, provide services and give our neighbourhoods their character. They are also often taking significant personal risks, investing their savings, working long hours and putting everything into making their business succeed.

I want to be a strong voice for those businesses. If someone is prepared to take the risk to start, invest and grow a business, government should be on their side. Too often, our tax system does the opposite.

Take business rates. If a small business invests in its premises, improving its shopfront, making it more accessible or creating a better environment, that investment can increase its rateable value and therefore its business rates bill. We shouldn't be taxing businesses for investing in themselves.

This is something I raised at our recent Liberal Democrat Conference. I moved an amendment to make sure our commitment to reforming business rates remained part of Liberal Democrat policy, and I was pleased that Conference backed it. 

Liberal Democrats are proposing to replace business rates with a Commercial Landowner Levy, shifting the burden away from the businesses occupying premises and onto the underlying commercial landowner.  The principle is straightforward: tax the value of the land, rather than penalising the business that is making it productive.

This could also change the incentives around empty properties. At present, a new business taking on an empty property can face a significant tax bill before it has even started trading. Under a Commercial Landowner Levy, the tax would instead be paid by the landowner,  whether the property is occupied or standing empty.

That means a landowner would no longer avoid the tax simply by leaving a property vacant. They would have a stronger reason to find a business or organisation to occupy it and put the property to productive use. And for a new business, removing business rates from the occupier would take away one of the costs and risks of getting started.

We should tax what we want less of, not what we want more of.

I'm pleased to have played a part in making sure this remains part of Liberal Democrat policy. But for me, this isn't just about what happens at Conference. It's about what it means for the businesses investing, employing people and serving our communities every day.

Business rates are only part of the picture. They are the start of my campaign for small businesses. I want to see a government that makes it easier to start, invest and grow a business; cuts unnecessary bureaucracy; and creates a tax system that rewards productive investment rather than penalising it.

That is what I will keep fighting for.

Because the next successful independent business, innovative start-up or growing employer could be right here in our community. We should be doing everything we can to help them succeed.