Chancellor Philip Hammond is set to announce a £1.5bn boost to small High Street UK retailers in the Budget. The financial package will include £900m in business rates relief for nearly 500,000 small businesses and a pot of £650m to rejuvenate high streets and their transport links. Planning rules will also be eased to allow home-building on empty sites. In one example, a pub in Sheffield with a rateable value of £37,750 will save £6,178 in business rates next year. A newsagent in Birmingham with a rateable value of £14,250 will save £1,749.

Business groups welcomed the plans but Labour said the rates relief did not go far enough. The Treasury said its new business rates relief, targeted at small retailers, could knock a third off their bills and that 90% of them would benefit from the proposals. To qualify as a small retailer, business premises must have a rateable value of £51,000 or less. While the funding is for the whole of the UK, it will be up to the individual nations' parliaments to decide exactly how to use the cash.

Mr Hammond will set out the government's future spending plans on Monday afternoon. The British Chambers of Commerce said the pledge to reduce rates bills for small retailers was welcome after an "alarming number" of High Street firms closed this year.

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