| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. McCartney: It is going out to consultation. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could tell us whether he is opposed to tax evasion.
Mr. Duncan: Of course I am opposed to tax evasion. I am also opposed to a tax regime that will harm innovation and enterprise and hold back Britain's progress in developing frontier technology and innovative, pioneering companies in today's competitive world.
That is not the only threat to our competitive model. There is also a risk that many of the patterns of commercial activity that we see across the channel in other European countries will be imported to this country to our cost. We have our own model and structure. We have a different sort of economy in many respects. Given the Government's attempts to chum up with their European friends, we are likely to have many costly directives and structures brought into this country in the interests of some specious harmonisation that would lead not to competitiveness, but to uncompetitiveness.
The Institute of Directors speaks for clear-thinking people who understand business. In a recent press release, the institute acknowledged the need for an efficient regulatory framework. We are not talking about people whom the Minister would critically describe as laissez-faire capitalist anarchists.
Mr. McCartney:
To be fair, I was talking about the hon. Gentleman, not the Institute of Directors.
Mr. Duncan:
I am not one either. The Minister should read my books. He might upskill himself a bit more.
The Institute of Directors identifies several key issues for many companies. The Minister should listen carefully and put the issues on his agenda to ensure that we have innovation and enterprise. The first point in the press release is that
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Duncan:
I want to go through the press release first. I shall come to the hon. Gentleman afterwards if he wants.
The IOD says:
The Minister seems unprepared to consult on this matter, but the IOD still wants an
Mr. McCartney:
I cannot remember the date of the press release, but it is somewhat out of date. On national works councils, our policy in opposition and in Government has been to oppose any directive that would impose works councils on companies that operate wholly within the United Kingdom. We are in favour of the European works councils directive, which is being implemented with the support of British industry. The Government's negotiating strategy has led to a position where, so far, there is no proposal for national works councils--a success for the Government, working with business.
On consultation, the Government have set in place a framework of consultation with industry and across all stakeholders in relation to regulations.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I have been trying to give both Front-Bench spokesmen some leeway, but interventions must be brief, and the Minister's intervention is far too long.
Mr. Duncan:
Let me make one thing clear. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), my colleagues and I will do our utmost to scrutinise every regulation that looks as if it is winging its way here. In return, will the Minister guarantee that no EU directive will ever end up tougher than its original form, and that, when incorporated into UK law, it will be no more onerous than its legal form and implementation in competitor countries? Can he give such a guarantee to the House now, or are we condemned to have tougher regulations here than the parallel ones implemented in other EU countries?
Mr. McCartney:
It was the previous Conservative Government who failed industry in terms of implementing directives. They refused to negotiate, be involved or even to sit down at the table in the interests of British business. They opted out. This Government have a clear strategic approach to directives. We will
Mr. Duncan:
Some might think that that was a good answer to a completely different question. I was asking about the equity of implementation of a directive. Clearly, I will not get an answer today. When we are in government, the Conservative party will not introduce any regulation without finding another one to abolish.
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, according to the House of Commons Library, the number of regulations imposing costs on business was 223 in 1994, 209 in 1996 and 199 in 1998? If he is such an opponent of regulations that have a cost on business, can he explain why the two years of most regulation were under a Conservative Government?
Mr. Duncan:
It may be a three-letter answer--QMV, or qualified majority voting. Anything that achieves less regulation is welcome on this side of the House.
The Minister did not mention the single currency. Those people, including business men, who support a single currency believe genuinely that it will reduce their risk and make for a less risky climate in which they will have to work and sell their products. However, if one locks into a currency, other economic variables will move, and probably move more violently. It could be interest rates, pressure on wages, pressure on labour mobility or capital flows. Big business will be able more readily to adjust to those pressures, at least in some respects.
The key thing about a domestic small business is that it cannot adjust. Therefore, there is a risk to all small businesses of having to face macroeconomic pressures to which they cannot adjust and to which they can only respond. I hope that the Minister will realise that small businesses will be at much greater risk than big businesses if the stringency and inflexibility of the single currency and its effects on the domestic economy come into play.
Mr. Butterfill:
I do not know whether my hon. Friend has heard the breaking news this morning. Italian industry is now saying that in order to keep within the constraints of the euro, it may be forced to ask workers to give up their pension rights.
Mr. Duncan:
My hon. Friend, as ever, is fully up to date. Even if those people have to suffer a reduction in their pension rights, and not their total abolition, that is a very heavy price to pay and is damaging to the long-term prospects of any employee.
The Labour party often talks about the long term. In opposition, it paraded itself as the champion of the long term. The one thing that Labour hopes for is that the long term is long enough for it not to be found out. Within months of coming into Government, the Labour party damaged the existing savings culture--it has hit pensions with a bill in excess of £5 billion. Individual savings
accounts are an inferior savings vehicle to those previously on offer. Labour is attacking the savings culture that was in place before it took over. Labour has not done things for the long term--it has damaged the long term.
Economic lesson No. 2 is savings equals investment. If one attacks savings, one attacks investment.
Mr. Jim Murphy:
What was economic lesson No. 1?
Mr. Duncan:
Opportunity cost is the answer, and the hon. Gentleman should go away and learn what that really means and work out how Government policies always have an opportunity cost.
The Government talk about enterprise and innovation, but what have we seen in the papers this week? We saw the extraordinary headline in the business section of The Times on Tuesday:
Mr. Duncan:
The Minister--and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett)--both agree. Some of us remember the days of the National Enterprise Board, a not-so-little outfit in the 1970s which was a disaster. We all remember the De Lorean gull-winged motor car; not the greatest commercial success in the history of industry, and the product of a poor decision by a Labour Government. The article says clearly that we are to have a state-backed bank--an announcement made not in the House of Commons, but in a press release to The Times--and states:
The money will be off the Government balance sheet, which will help them to fiddle the figures. The subordinated debt will probably rank below private enterprise debt, so the risk is greater for the taxpayer and the state than for the private sector. The last paragraph of the newspaper article is the most telling. It says:
"the introduction of fresh legislation or new regulations should be avoided unless all alternatives have first been exhausted."
I wonder whether the Minister can give the House that pledge.
"More time is needed by small firms both to respond to consultation documents and to familiarise themselves with new regulations."
The IOD also calls for sunset clauses. Does the Minister think it sensible that regulations should last for a finite time and not be renewed unless they have been proved to work satisfactorily?
"exemption for firms of fewer than 50 people from the Employment Relations Bill",
which is something that the Government should deliver. It wants the the parental leave directive to be scrapped--another burden on business imposed by the Government. It thinks that the
"introduction of National Works Councils across Europe must, in particular, be resisted in the UK."
That is quite a shopping list. If the IOD has such a shopping list, the Minister cannot in all good faith stand up and say that the Government are not placing new burdens on business.
"State-backed bank for PFI gets the go-ahead."
Mr. Wills:
What a good idea.
"The Government have given the go-ahead to radical plans to create a new state-backed bank, UK Capital--
it even has a name--
"aimed at injecting fresh enthusiasm into the Private Finance Initiative."
Not only does it have a name: it looks as if it has someone to head it. [Interruption.] The Minister clearly agrees. A Mr. Montague, the head of the Treasury-led PFI task force, will head it. The plan is to "inject fresh enthusiasm" into the private finance initiative. How can a private finance initiative still be a private finance initiative if it is to be financed by a state-backed bank? That means that it is not a private finance initiative, but a public finance initiative. The Minister shakes his head, but he will have to explain. He clearly has a clever scheme which, one day, he might have the courtesy to explain to the House.
"The plans have caused alarm in the City, where the prospect of public money competing directly with private cash is viewed as unwelcome."
Will the Minister come clean and urge the Secretary of State to give the House a clear statement of what is intended and what will happen to what is said to be £1.2 billion of public money?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |