ACS has welcomed recommendations in a new report from the Business and Trade Committee on the Government's Small Business Strategy aimed at tackling crime and reducing costs for local shops.

The report, released today (10 February 2026), follows the publication of the Small Business Strategy in July 2025, and is the result of a months-long inquiry into the challenges facing small businesses. The report highlights a number of specific issues, including late payments, business rates costs, employment costs, energy costs, and retail crime as barriers to growth for SMEs.

The report makes over 60 recommendations to the Government to support small businesses, including:

• Property revaluations mean that the permanently lower multipliers announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 will likely do little to bring down business rates bills for small businesses. The Government should complete its review of the business rates system and incorporate more ambitious options for reform.
• Small business energy customers engage with the energy market more like individual consumers than companies. Despite this, they have access to none of the same protections, leaving them vulnerable to opaque bills, contracts, and a limited number of energy providers. To best support SMEs buying energy, the Government should introduce standardised billing formats for non-domestic customers.
• The Government should amend the business rates regime so that security prevention measures, such as CCTV, do not count towards a property’s rateable value.
• The Government should ensure that there is a named Assistant Chief Constable for every police force with explicit responsibility for tackling business crime.

ACS has long campaigned for CCTV to be removed from the rating list so that retailers don't have to pay twice to keep their colleagues and customers safe. ACS data on crime is referred to throughout the report, and ACS gave evidence in person to the Business and Trade Select Committee in September, highlighting the major impact that crime has on local shops.

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: "This influential group of MPs have backed ACS’ long-standing campaign for CCTV and security to be excluded from business rates calculations. At a time when business rates bills are set to rise significantly for thousands of independent retailers, we welcome these common sense measures that would relieve some of the cost burden for local shops and avoid deterring investment in crime prevention.

“We can’t have thriving high streets and vibrant small businesses without tackling the unacceptable levels of crime that makes those places feel unsafe. Consumers, residents and businesses want safe places to shop, work and invest.”

Liam Byrne, chair of the Business and Trade Committee, said: “SMEs are facing late payments, rising energy costs, increasing crime, a complex tax system and barriers to growth that are compounding rather than easing. These pressures are not isolated; together they pose a real risk to business viability, high streets and economic growth.

“High streets do not die by accident. If the Government is serious about growth, it must set out a more coherent and ambitious plan for the businesses that make up so much of the UK economy.”

The full report from the Business and Trade Committee is available here