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Knowledge-based Economy
8. Ms Margaret Moran (Luton, South): What steps the Government are taking to ensure that the benefits of the knowledge-based economy are accessible to people in all socio-economic groups. [128947]
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): We are taking action in a number of areas to ensure that everyone can benefit from the internet and new technologies, and more generally from an economy based on skills and knowledge.
Ms Moran: I thank my right hon. Friend for his commitment to ensuring that the new technologies are available to all. But is he aware that in parts of my constituency young Asian males and females are four times more likely to be unemployed than their white counterparts? That is why I am working with business and the voluntary sector in a project to encourage the take-up of new technologies for skills and job opportunities. What incentives can my right hon. Friend offer such projects?
What incentives will be available to ensure that the most socially excluded can engage in businesses in the new economy and the opportunities that it offers?
Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The survey produced just two days ago by the Office of National Statistics showed clearly that there was a danger of a digital divide developing in the United Kingdom--a geographical divide between north and south, as well as a divide based on ethnic background. I commend my hon. Friend for the work that she is doing with young black and Asian people in her constituency. There is clearly a responsibility for Government to reflect on that as well. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has commissioned some work in this area to make sure that people from different ethnic backgrounds do not lose out in terms of the new technologies.
There is a very important lesson here for all of us. The new technologies have the potential to bring great opportunity, but also to introduce greater divisions in our society. It is the job of an active Government to ensure that wherever we come from, whatever our background, we all benefit from the new technologies.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): How can the Secretary of State stand there and pay glib lip service to supporting high-tech industries when the Government are bringing in IR35, which will drive entrepreneurs offshore tomorrow? The CBI, the TUC, the Federation of Small Businesses and others agree that this is a disaster for entrepreneurial business in the sector. What does the right hon. Gentleman have to say about that?
Mr. Byers: As the hon. Gentleman knows, IR35 was introduced because service companies were being exploited in a way that meant that some people were not paying their fair share of tax and national insurance. Entrepreneurs who are prepared to make their contribution to the United Kingdom have nothing to fear from IR35.
We hear stories from Conservative Members about people walking away from the United Kingdom; it would be interesting to see some figures to support those accusations. [Interruption.] I look forward to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) providing me with details and names, because so far no Conservative Member has been able to do so.
Small Business Service
9. Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): What plans he has to promote the work of the Small Business Service. [128948]
The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt): David Irwin, chief executive of the new Small Business Service, is looking at how we can promote our services to our small business customers even more effectively.
Mr. Kidney: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does she accept that the creation of the Small Business Service marks a step change in our country's appreciation of the significant contribution that small businesses make to the success of our economy? Does she agree that it is important that all the people who might benefit from the
work of the service should know that it exists, and that it is there to help? Will she say something about the marketing that she intends to carry out to ensure that there is maximum awareness among the people who could benefit from the service?
Ms Hewitt: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We are determined to ensure that locally, small businesses and people wanting to start small businesses are aware of what their local business links can offer, and nationally, that they are aware of the programmes and support for which the Small Business Service is responsible. We will be using every possible avenue--including, of course, the internet--to make sure that that message gets across.
Mr. Brian Cotter (Weston-super-Mare): Does the Minister agree that the Small Business Service should be taking account of the European small business charter? The charter has some excellent aspirations for small business which, if implemented, would be extremely beneficial to the sector. Will the Minister indicate when the Government will start implementing these measures?
Ms Hewitt: We were, of course, responsible for promoting the idea of the small business charter, and we were delighted when the proposals were accepted at the Lisbon summit. We are now working with the European Commission and with our European colleagues to make sure that the proposals come into effect.
Let me stress the fact that not only are there 1 million more people in work than when we were elected, but 1 million new businesses have started up since then. It is not surprising that the Economist Intelligence Unit recently concluded that the United Kingdom is one of the best places in the world to do business, and we intend to keep it that way.
Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside): Will my hon. Friend say how the Small Business Service will support co-operative and community businesses? How will it work with universities in supporting spin-out technologies into small companies? Can she give me an assurance that she will do all she can to ensure that the north-west has a strong scientific base? Can she also assure me that adequate support will be given to the recommendations of the working party now considering scientific developments based on the work of universities and research institutions in the north-west, including work done at Liverpool and Manchester universities, following the very regrettable decision about Daresbury?
Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend makes several important points. We have asked the Small Business Service and business links specifically to support business start-ups in disadvantaged areas. Over the next three years, we are putting £30 million into the Phoenix fund to help support that initiative. We have already created and funded 12 enterprise centres in universities throughout the country to help to ensure that science-based ideas are commercialised. I know that my hon. Friend and vice-chancellors of universities in the north-west will warmly welcome the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of an additional £1 billion investment in the science base in our universities.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Does the hon. Lady not understand that for the hotel and restaurant sector, none of the initiatives of the Small Business Service remotely compensates for the fact that the regulatory burden for that sector consists of no fewer than 70 booklets and 1,500 pages?
Ms Hewitt: The recent report of the better regulation taskforce on the hotel and catering sector is excellent. With my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, we are considering carefully how we can implement its recommendations. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that a large part of the over-complex regulations that are undoubtedly burdening the hotel sector is a leftover from the time of the previous Government? We are putting effective measures in place to simplify business support. I challenge the hon. Gentleman to say whether he will exempt small hotels and bed-and-breakfast places from the hygiene and safety regulations that are essential for the safety of customers and workers alike.
Post Offices
10. Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth): If he will make a statement on his plans for maintaining access to post offices. [128949]
The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson): In his statement to the House on 28 June, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry announced a range of measures to underpin the Government's commitment to maintaining a nationwide network of post offices. Those measures include a formal requirement for the Post Office to maintain the rural network and to prevent any avoidable closures. This requirement will cover all post offices in settlements of fewer than 10,000 people, and will thus apply to nearly 10,000 post offices. In urban areas, we shall encourage improvements in the quality of post offices and associated retail businesses that also maintain convenient access, with particular emphasis on deprived areas. Furthermore, we have made it clear that financial assistance will be available to support those measures as necessary.
Mr. Jenkins: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I am sure that he is unaware that access to the main post office in Tamworth is by a ramp or three sets of steps--that matter is outside his remit.
Although we welcome the universal bank, what will it do for customers for whom a bank account is wholly inappropriate? What can the Department do about that?
Mr. Johnson: The whole point of the universal bank is to pick up on the PAT 14 report on financial exclusion, which found that people who are outside mainstream banking services lose out as a result. The idea is to ensure that people who may have a certain distrust of banks, but who--as has been found time and again--by and large trust the Post Office, can use their access to post offices to give them the advantages of a bank account. That is especially true for those who draw benefits, and it is an
important development. It is high time that we did something to tackle the enormous problem of financial exclusion in this country.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): Nobody will have access to rural post offices if the income stream is not assured. Will the Minister give us an answer on our third try today? The sum of £400 million has been lost to sub-postmasters through the introduction of automated credit transfer. The Government's document states that the universal bank and other banking schemes might bring in £50 million. In answer to an earlier question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), the Secretary of State raised that figure--off the cuff--to £150 million, without giving any reason. He mentioned various small things like the internet--[Hon. Members: "Small?"] Yes. Who will fill that gaping black hole of £400 million in the finances of sub-postmasters? We want no waffle about Women's Institutes or commercial incompetence; give us the facts now.
Mr. Johnson: Of course, the hon. Gentleman has a degree in waffling. I remember full well that his solution to the problem was to privatise the whole Post Office lock, stock and barrel.
Let me explain the position to the hon. Gentleman. The loss of £400 million of income would occur only if no one ever went into a post office again to draw pensions and benefits across a post office counter. As everyone with an interest in the issue realises, the status quo is not an option. People are volunteering to go over to ACT at the rate of 500,000 a year, and that trend will increase as a whole new generation, who are used to cashless pay, come up to retirement. The win, win, win solution is the idea of a universal bank that will ensure that people who want to draw their pensions and benefits across a post office counter will still be able to do so.
The hon. Gentleman made a fairly disparaging reference to the internet. One of the major reasons why we have such a ubiquitous post office network in this country is that the Post Office was in at the birth of the telegraph service in 1871. The whole system was established around what was then stunning new technology. It is appropriate that we put the Post Office in the same position now, so that it can be in at the ground floor of e-commerce, which opens up the whole range of opportunities that the performance and innovation unit report rightly identified.
Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston): It is a bit rich for the Conservative party to complain about the Post Office, particularly following the representations that I made to the previous Administration about the problems faced by Little Neston and Mickle Trafford, two rural post offices in my constituency. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that it is especially important for such businesses to increase the footfall in their shops and premises. Will he have words with his colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the
Regions to ensure that information services from local government can be made available in local post offices? That would increase their overall business potential.
Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend raises an important point. It was raised with us by the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which identified the fact that sub-postmasters, sub-postmistresses and their staff currently provide a free, largely unrecognised--except by the communities that they serve--and certainly unrewarded service in distributing government information. The idea of making them government "general practitioners", properly trained and rewarded to provide government information, is one of the report's important recommendations. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has been given the job of taking that recommendation forward.
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