Small high street business owners must have the chance to compete on a level playing field with online giants.

The call comes from MP Charlie Elphicke comes as 15 business units already lie empty in Dover's precinct, five in one row.

It is also at a time when Parliament's Treasury Select Committee has published a report telling of the strain of business rates on traders.

Mr Elphicke, Dover and Deal MP, spoke at a committee meeting to Richard Allen from the campaign group Retailers Against VAT Abuse Scheme (RAVAS).

Charlie said: “Do you think that small businesses get the book thrown at them while big companies like Amazon get off lightly because the Treasury have a secret policy, a secret direction to HMRC not to be too hard on the big boys?”

Mr Allen said: “I was told by a senior official that HMRC had been instructed not to go too hard on Amazon yet.”

Mr Elphicke asked him: “Do you think there is a concern that the tax conditions in which online retailers like eBay and Amazon operate – that they have an unfair competitive advantage over high street businesses that pay business rates, that pay their taxes, that employ people in Britain, where these enterprises don’t?”

Mr Allen said: “Yes, and the reason for that is because the regulatory environment which those online businesses operate is not as tough as the regulatory environment for the high street retailer.

“You couldn’t sell dangerous products in a shop. You couldn’t openly be selling goods with no VAT charged on them in the shop.”

Mr Elphicke is now urging Treasury ministers to take note of this evidence.

Speaking after the hearing on Tuesday last week Jul 3 he said: “We must do everything we can to support the great British high street.

“Small business owners in Dover and Deal work tirelessly to make a success of their shops, cafes and restaurants.

“So we cannot have a situation where Amazon and eBay have an unfair competitive advantage over high street retailers.

“There must be a level playing field.”

The British government lost up to £1.5 billion last year as the result of tax evasion by overseas companies selling goods to consumers in the UK without charging or accounting properly for VAT, according to the National Audit Office.

The committee is also concerned about the general effects of business rates on traders.

Committee chairman Nicky Morgan wrote to Chancellor Philip Hammond following an evidence session with the Valuation Office Agency last month.

Mrs Morgan expressed the committee's fears about the strain of business rates on traders.

She also asked if the Treasury analysed the competitive advantage of businesses that focus on online sales.

Mrs Morgan said afterwards: "It’s clear that many bricks and mortar stores are struggling to remain competitive against online retailers, with the Chancellor admitting that business rates can represent a high fixed cost for some businesses.

"The Treasury Committee is increasingly concerned with the financial burden that business rates are placing on high street businesses, and has examined the issue in its inquiries into VAT and the VOA."

These pressures on local businesses already come at a time when whole sections of the Cannon Street and Biggin Street precinct is withering.

The Mercury counted 15 closed businesses units on the precinct on Monday.

Its previous formal count in September showed only 12 on the same stretch, between the Town Hall and Market Square.

It is not always known why individual premises have closed but some have moved to the new St James' retail and leisure complex, which first opened in March.

Two out of an entire row of five closed premises, Marks and Spencer and Superdrug, moved there.

Since then the fast food giant McDonald's moved out but some empty units has been filled.

One has been taken by the social supermarket Nifties, run by district councillor Nathaniel Richards.

The property next to it was dubbed Triffids House, because it has vines growing inside its upper floors.

The previously empty shop space on the Biggin Street building has been filled by the social supermarket Nifties, run by district councillor Nathaniel Richards.

An empty premises next door to that is now filled by HR Go Recruitment.

And Greggs and Costa have opened in St James' but kept their precinct premises.

In January Dover District Council announced a precinct rescue plan with nearly half a million pounds planned for investment in areas included as regeneration, town centre improvements such as repaving Biggin Street.

The council says it would rebrand the precinct the Old Town where niche shops will be encouraged to complement the leading brand names at St James'.

A spokesman added: "Business rates are a national tax set by government and collected by councils.

" As a council, we are required to collect the amounts billable, as determined by the property valuation (set by the Government’s Valuation Office Agency) and the multiplier set by the government and the various reliefs available."

A spokesman for Amazon said: “We pay all taxes required in the UK and every country where we operate. Corporation tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits have remained low given retail is a highly-competitive, low margin business and our continued heavy investment.

"We’ve invested over £9.3 billion in the UK since 2010 including opening a new head office in London and development centres in Cambridge and London last year, and will create 2,500 permanent jobs across the country in research and development, our head office, customer service and fulfilment centres this year to bring our total workforce to 27,500.”

The company stresses that Amazon UK Services Ltd, its services arm, paid £7.4 million in corporation tax in 2016 on profits of £24 million.

An HMRC spokesperson said: “We would never give a company or individual preferential treatment. Multinationals must pay all taxes due and we don’t settle for less."

HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) stresses that in 2016/17 it secured more than £8 billion in additional tax revenue from the largest and most complex businesses.

The organisations says that it has a strong track record of tackling avoidance, evasion and non-compliance and the UK has one of the lowest tax gaps in the world.

This is is the difference between what should be collected under the rules and what HMRC actually collects.

It adds that the government takes any suggestion of VAT fraud very seriously and is fully committed to tackling it.·

Its powers were recently strengthened to make online marketplaces accountable for VAT fraud committed on their platforms.

This new package is expected to deliver £165 million by 2023.