Will the Cabinet Secretary confirm whether maintaining the £200m for non-domestic rates represents a real terms cut to business funding and if the funding for high street rate relief and the £7.5m for childcare premises is included within this allocation?
In 2018-19, the Welsh Government is providing an estimated £210 million of relief to non domestic ratepayers to help with their rates bills. More than three quarters of ratepayers in Wales benefit from some form of relief. The levels of relief are directly related to the liability of eligible ratepayers and move in line with inflation. The estimates include High Street Rates Relief. The provision for the £7.5m relief to be provided to childcare premises from 1 April 2019 is in addition to the current relief schemes.