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Deregulation
6. Mr. Nigel Evans: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent representations he has received concerning the over-regulation of small businesses.[32609]
Mr. Freeman: Earlier this year, I received over 500 letters from small businesses when I invited them to tell me what regulations were hampering their business. At the final "Your Business Matters" conference on11 March, we announced a package of deregulation measures in response to the concerns raised. We are now continuing our contacts with businesses through a series of special deregulation seminars.
Mr. Evans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that small businesses are the backbone of this country and that we ought to do as much as we possibly can to lift burdens from them, so that they can grow and employ more people? Is he therefore as concerned as I am at the possibility of the introduction of the regulations incorporating the 48-hour directive, which would undoubtedly affect some small businesses? We did not sign up to that directive; indeed, we explicitly opted out of it. Is the Minister aware that he will have the support of the vast majority of businesses, small, medium and large, in his fight to resist the imposition of the 48-hour directive?
Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that small businesses would suffer greatly from the erroneous and dangerous election of a Labour Government, who would agree to qualified majority voting on the social chapter provisions of the Maastricht treaty. That would mean a great many expensive burdens on small businesses. The Opposition are by no means the friend of small businesses. It is this Government who have consistently deregulated and who will defend small and large businesses against inflexible and expensive welfare state laws.
Mr. Olner: Does not the Minister speak with forked tongue? Will he admit that, for every deregulation order that the Government have introduced in recent years, they have brought in three new regulation orders which have crippled small businesses?
Mr. Freeman: That is a travesty of the truth. Neither Labour Front Benchers nor Back Benchers have any genuine interest in the deregulation initiative, and Labour would sideline it if ever elected to government. In the past 12 months alone, we have lifted burdens from small companies by allowing more than 500,000 of them to pay VAT annually; and we have lifted the auditing burdens from another 500,000.
Mr. Anthony Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development, which found that the reasons why small businesses in this country produce so many new jobs are the deregulation and privatisation effected by the Government, and the lowering of company taxation for small businesses? Was he as nauseated as I was to see the Leader of the Opposition last week in Germany attempting to glory in the transformation of the economy that those very measures have brought about--given that he voted against every single one of them?
Mr. Freeman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Indeed, experience of the social market experiments in Germany and other EU countries shows how dangerous they can be, in the sense that those countries lose competitiveness. Germany's unit costs, compared with ours, have meant that time and again Germany has lost, and we have gained, inward investment. In competition with those other countries, they lose and we gain in terms of export markets.
Ministerial Visits
7. Mr. Jamieson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he intends to visit Plymouth and the south-west of England to discuss the competitiveness of the region.[32610]
The Deputy Prime Minister: I shall be visiting the south-west to discuss competitiveness in a few weeks' time.
Mr. Jamieson: During that visit, will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us whether he agrees with the Prime Minister that there should be a grammar school in every town? Or does he agree with the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, who apparently voted to close the grammar schools in Norfolk? How will competitiveness in the south-west be enhanced by reintroducing secondary modern schools--a system that declares that 80 per cent. of children aged 11 have failed?
The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has missed the point: divisions on education are not among Conservative Members; they are among Opposition Members. The Leader of the Opposition does one thing for his children and tries to stop the rest of the country doing the same for theirs.
Sir Peter Emery: When considering competitiveness in the south-west, will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the great need of businesses in the area to have their mail delivered? Although we may not always have seen eye to eye on this, it is obvious that if strikes continue to upset businesses in the south-west or anywhere else, the Post Office's monopoly will have to be broken.
The Deputy Prime Minister: I welcome my right hon. Friend to a cause on which I failed to persuade him a few months ago--it just goes to show that they all come around in the end. I am concerned, as are the Government--
Mr. Lewis: Another Tory cover-up.
The Deputy Prime Minister: I am answering the question, not the hon. Gentleman.
The House should be preoccupied with the customers--with the people who are waiting for letters, with the people who expect to get a decent service. It should not be preoccupied with the understandable, but regrettable, commitment of the Labour party to defend the unions whenever they take action that threatens the interests of the wider public.
Mr. Caborn:
I convey the thanks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East(Mr. Prescott) to the Deputy Prime Minister for the witty get well message that he sent to him earlier today. My right hon. Friend wants also to convey the message that it has brought a whole new meaning to hop-along deputy.
I am surprised at the answer that the Deputy Prime Minister has given about competitiveness in the south-west region. That region is now well below average in gross domestic product per capita terms. When will he set out a positive programme of regeneration for the regions, which clearly was not in his recent White Paper? I am sure that he acknowledges that regeneration will come through the regions. Will he take seriously the recent Confederation of British Industry report on the south-west, which posed a number of questions about competitiveness? Will he also take on board the recommendations of the Bruce Millan commission--which was set up by the Labour party--which has just reported on regeneration of the regions? When will we have a debate on the competitiveness White Paper?
The Deputy Prime Minister:
I am grateful to the hon. Member for referring to the message that I sent to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East(Mr. Prescott) when I received the news that he had fractured his foot and had been taken to a major hospital in the area. I hope that he gets well soon, and I am delighted that he is receiving excellent treatment in that hospital. As I pointed out to him, Tory government works.
As to the specific issue of the regeneration of the south-west, I believe that the Government are taking that matter seriously. We have asked my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration to take a special co-ordinating role to focus Government support. I had the opportunity to lead in the creation of the urban development corporation in Plymouth which, as hon. Members will know, made available some £41 million for the regeneration of the Royal William dockyard and its environs.
In addition, £170 million of European rural development funds have gone to Devon, Cornwall and west Somerset; £79 million has been levered in by£13.5 million of regional selective assistance; there have been £72 million-worth of projects in the south-west in the first two rounds of the single regeneration budget; and£23 million of European funds have gone to the regeneration of Plymouth. I am delighted to see the support that has been given to that by the excellent newspaper, the Western Morning News.
Mr. Mans:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way to destroy competitiveness in the south-west region--or in any other region--is to introduce the minimum wage, as is suggested by the Labour party? It would result in lost orders, businesses going under and jobs being lost.
The Deputy Prime Minister:
I am delighted to have another chance to refer to the right hon. Member for
8. Mrs. Clwyd:
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the efficacy of parliamentary procedures relating to the answering of questions for which he has responsibility.[32611]
Mr. Willetts:
My right hon. Friend has made no such assessment. My colleagues and I always try to bear in mind the injunction in "Erskine May" that answers
Mrs. Clwyd:
Perhaps the Minister should move off "Erskine May" and on to the conclusions of Sir Richard Scott. Subsequent to his inquiry, he said that Parliament should not be fobbed off by blocking and inadequate answers from Ministers. Does he agree with another suggestion put forward by Sir Richard Scott--that there should be a parliamentary watchdog to ensure that Parliament is told the truth?
Mr. Willetts:
The crucial responsibility is that of a Minister to the House. I believe that here in the Chamber of the House, both Opposition Members and Government Members can hold Ministers to account for the answers that they give.
Dr. Spink:
May I press my hon. Friend to say how long it would take his Department to deal with questions on our economic performance including, for instance, a question about the impact of the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years?
Mr. Willetts:
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the ingenuity of that supplementary. Of course, if I were invited to regale the House with the story of the British economy since 1979, I would be able to explain that we have the lowest mortgage rates for a generation and that, in the most recent economic cycle, our output per head grew more rapidly than that of any other major economy apart from Japan.
"should be confined to the points contained in the question, with such explanation only as renders the answer intelligible."
Although "Erskine May" adds temptingly
"a certain latitude is permitted to Ministers of the Crown",
I am sure that you, Madam Speaker, would rein us in if we strayed too far.
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