COMMENT

RISHI SUNAK has only been Chancellor for a few days but he cannot afford to take time to ease into his new job, as there are issues that require immediate action, most notably business rates.

The 39-year-old needs to confront the problem of this calamitous tax which is helping to kill off Britain’s high streets. A number of his more experienced predecessors either tinkered with it or ignored it.

While there is nothing wrong per se with taxing companies on the value of the properties that they occupy, in practice business rates have become an enterprise killer.

The value of business rates has, owing to runaway property prices, soared beyond what people can be reasonably expected to pay, while previous chancellors’ tinkering has turned it into a fiendishly complex tax.

According to the Centre for Retail Research, last year 16,073 shops were closed, with the loss of 143,128 jobs. In 2018, 14,583 stores closed, taking 117,425 jobs with them.

Sunak needs to be brave and either dramatically reduce and simplify, or, even better, abolish business rates while there are still high streets to save. High streets are the heartbeats of their communities and if we want them to prosper, we need to help shops to survive.

● geoff.ho@express.co.uk