A WORCESTER accountancy firm, which has launched a campaign for a "root and branch" reform of business rates, has welcomed the findings of a Parliamentary Select Committee.

Managing partner of Bishop Fleming Matthew Lee has described business rates as "an iniquitous tax" and now MPs on the business committee have agreed the need for a "wholesale review" of the business rates system, which they consider the biggest single threat to the survival of retail businesses in the high street.

The Parliamentary committee has also urged a re-think of whether this tax should be based on sales rather than the rentable value of their property and called for a six months business rates amnesty for empty properties.

Mr Lee said: "This Parliamentary committee has come to all the right conclusions. Right now, Business rates are holding back the revival of the high street and constraining the ability of owner-managed businesses of all types to deliver economic recovery and growth. The fact that this tax is guaranteed to rise, irrespective of business performance, by being uniquely index-linked to inflation - and based on property values that have not been reviewed since the peak of property prices - makes it iniquitous."

Bishop Fleming has launched a Downing Street e-petition, calling for a "root & branch" reform of Business Rates: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57038.