Tories promise more help for small firms

Shadow licensing minister Tobias Ellwood has unveiled Tory proposals to help pubs fight back against the recession.

Speaking at the Best Bar None national conference in Leicester last week he revealed councils could be given powers to allow pubs a break from paying rates.

He said: "You could remove rates for a certain period of time to allow them to weather the storm."

His position on rates received support from Everards managing director Stephen Gould, who was also speaking at the event.

Gould, who is also the Midlands chairman for the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "Rates can be a huge challenge to the small business operator and the government really needs to think about how much they want to extract from town and city centres."

He added there was potentially more to be gained by encouraging and supporting "an enlightened and thriving night-time economy."

Other measures outlined by Ellwood, which are not yet official Tory policy, are all designed to help small and medium size businesses.

They include a six-month freeze on VAT and a £50bn loan guarantee scheme to help new businesses. Ellwood also echoed comments recently made by Ken Clarke about the need to reduce red tape in business.

He went on to suggest other businesses involved with the trade need to evolve to help pubs and pointed to Sky's current review of the way it bases subscriptions fees on rateable values.

"The current system just doesn't make sense," he said

Ellwood went on to criticise the mandatory code of practice on alcohol retailers and suggested any code should be designed by people working in the trade.

"The industry itself should decide, it shouldn't be imposed on it by the government. We believe that is wrong."