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Business of the House

May I take the Leader of the House back to the plight of the hundreds of small businesses in Britain's ports and the enormous backdated rating demand, which many of them are quite unable to pay? I understand that since I raised the matter last week some informal guidance has been issued saying that they may not have to declare that on their balance sheets. However, all the legal and accounting advice is that the requirement remains. Those businesses will have to close on 1 January unless the Government improve their offer of simply phasing the payments.