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3.59 pm
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), my colleague on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee.
In the main, notwithstanding the concerning revelations about future unknown clauses relating to Sunday trading, this is not a bad Bill. There is a bold and lofty ambition to the rhetoric accompanying the Bill, which is, I would suggest, somewhat at odds with reality. I think even the Minister would have to accept that the impact of the Bill will be very marginal in promoting a step change to improve the productivity, profitability and competitiveness of firms.
It is excellent news that the number of UK business births has increased to 351,000—the highest number since comparable records began in 2000—and I am particularly pleased that the north-east has the highest proportion of new business starts, albeit from a smaller business base. The increase in the number of start-ups is a commendable achievement, and it would be churlish not to acknowledge the Government’s positive role in helping to bring it about.
The Government hope that the Bill will continue that trend, stating that it
“will cement the UK’s position as the best place in Europe to start and grow a business”.
I support that ambition, but I doubt it will be achieved. Although they have been successful in encouraging business start-ups, they have been less so in facilitating business survival and growth. It is difficult to see how the Bill will change that. In the same period as we saw a record number of business births, we also saw a marked increase in the number of business failures: the number of business deaths increased to 246,000, which was three times the rate of business births.
That could be seen as the natural churn of a dynamic economy—it is a function of a market that businesses are born and naturally die—but business survival rates are worrying. The UK does well on firms that survive their first year in business—the average of 93% is well above the EU average of 83%—but the more sustained survival rate for British enterprises is poor. Less than 40% of UK companies last more than five years. Only Latvia, Slovenia, Portugal and Lithuania fare worse. A failure to last for any length of time limits British companies’ ability to scale up and become more resilient, innovative and outward-looking, thereby taking market share, winning export orders and employing more people.
Sherry Coutu’s report on scale-ups showed that a 1% growth in firms scaling up in Britain would create an additional 238,000 jobs and add £38 billion in gross value added to the UK economy. Similarly, the recent report by Octopus Investments on high-growth small businesses showed that a tiny number of firms—22,740, or just 0.43% of the business stock in the UK—accounted for an unbelievable one in three new jobs in 2014 and 20% of all growth in the UK economy. These firms have the potential to do so much more, yet one in four finds it difficult to get the funding it needs and three quarters say that lack of access to funding is a significant barrier to growth. The problem of access to finance remains a pertinent issue for firms, which is why the Select Committee has launched an inquiry into it. If the Bill’s purpose is to make the UK the best place in Europe to grow a
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business, why does it not tackle access to finance? If the Government are serious about ensuring growth, why does the Bill not put in place measures to facilitate an expansion of scale-ups to power employment and economic growth?
A recent report by the RSA said that the complexities of the UK tax system, a lack of bank lending and the cost of running a business were the top reasons for failure and early corporate death. That being the case, why do the Government consider tax changes to be out of the scope of the Bill’s deregulatory activities? Given that complexity in the tax system is seen as a drag on economic and business growth, to the point of often fatally overwhelming firms, why is tax not considered part of the business impact targets? The Government propose to make small businesses file their tax returns on a quarterly basis. That will have an enormous impact on small firms and place a regulatory burden on business. Should that sort of thing not be within the scope of the Bill?
Richard Fuller: I thank the hon. Gentleman, a fellow member of the Select Committee, for giving way. His Front-Bench team talked about the Bill being more ambitious, and he is talking about cutting taxes and looking at ways to create more innovative financing. May I urge him to table his own amendments, from his own experience, so that the Government can come up with an even better Bill?
Mr Wright: I thank my colleague from the BIS Committee for his intervention. We share the same view about freeing businesses from unnecessary regulatory burdens. I want the Bill to be more ambitious and to bring about a step change. I mentioned the business impact target in clause 14. Is the Minister aware that, as drafted, the Bill imposes an additional cost on businesses? The accompanying impact assessment states that the best estimate of the cost of the business impact target is £10.5 million a year, with “no monetised benefits identified”. How can she justify that for a Bill that is intended to free up small businesses?
On taxation, small and medium-sized firms believe that the rules are applied rigidly against them, and that the larger and more powerful a company becomes, the more the payment of UK tax becomes almost an option—something like a casual thing to consider. That bullying and intimidation also applies to payment of suppliers by large companies. In that regard, the introduction in part 1 of the small business commissioner to handle complaints by small businesses about payment matters is a welcome step. I am pleased that the Government are establishing that.
As has already been said in the debate, the commissioner’s powers are rather narrow. Part 1 grants the SBC the power to provide only “advice and information” to small firms, rather than enforcement powers. The commissioner has the capacity to consider in the region of only 500 cases a year. I question whether that is appropriate, given the huge, often endemic and structural problems certain sectors face with late payment. As the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) mentioned in a good speech, the commissioner could be too limited in scope; something akin to the Small Business Administration in the US may be more appropriate. For over 60 years, the SBA has been a consistent part of the small business support
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ecosystem, providing funding, access to public procurement and mentoring to small businesses. Have the Government considered something similar here?
I shall finish with some comments about clause 21 and what can be defined as an apprenticeship. As the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, who sits on the Select Committee, said, this is a welcome step. Yesterday, we published our report on the Government’s productivity plan, and we welcome that part of Government policy, although we are slightly more critical of other parts. However, there is a risk. The Minister will want to do all he can to ensure that the 3 million apprenticeships target will be met by 2020. In that context, there may be a temptation to double-count or rebadge apprentice numbers. Is that still possible under the Bill? Subsection (2) of new section A11 in clause 21 states where employers do not commit an offence if they describe a non-statutory apprenticeship as an apprenticeship. Will the Minister reassure me that only statutory apprenticeships will be included in the 3 million target?
In the main, this is not a bad Bill. It will help in some ways around the edges, but it will not provide the step change that small businesses need to scale up.
4.7 pm
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con): Today the Government have brought before us an exciting and much needed Bill that, if passed, will significantly and beneficially impact on enterprise in my constituency and, indeed, throughout our United Kingdom.
I would like to focus on the particular benefits brought by part 2 regulators and the business impact targets. This measure is an excellent way for the Conservative Government to help fulfil our manifesto commitments to our country by promoting a much better environment for business and enterprise to thrive.
As we have heard from my hon. Friends, Labour’s record on regulation is appalling. When last in government, Labour oversaw the creation of six new regulations every working day, and that new red tape cost British businesses billions of pounds from 1998 onwards. Indeed, Labour Members do not understand the needs of businesses—and, worse still, they appear not to want to understand those needs on the basis of what we have heard from the Opposition Benches today. Under the last Labour Government, taxes on businesses were too high, and by all accounts, Labour planned to increase the rates of national insurance.
Achieving £10 billion of regulatory savings for businesses over the course of this Parliament is a key manifesto commitment—I stood on it—of this Conservative Government. This will build on the success of the previous Government’s deregulation agenda, which itself delivered £10 billion of deregulatory savings over the course of the last Parliament.
Businesses constantly tell me and, I am sure, many Members that the actions of regulators are as at least as important as the content of legislation in determining their experience of regulation. For example—and this was mentioned earlier—according to recent business perception surveys, 46% of businesses agreed that preparing for inspections or dealing with inspectors was burdensome, 49% considered that they did not receive good enough
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advice from regulators to make confident investment decisions, and 73% of scale-ups thought that they would be able to grow faster if dealing with regulators were easier.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con): My hon. Friend is making a very considered speech. I agree that cutting red tape is a huge priority. We made progress in that respect during the last Parliament, and we intend to cover much further ground by means of the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that it is also vital for us to push back regulation from the European Union, and that the European Union could learn from us? Does not Tusk’s latest announcement show that even the EU is now learning from what we are doing in this important area?
Alberto Costa: I welcome any measure that cuts inappropriate regulation, whatever the source of that regulation.
Considerable progress was made under the last Government through initiatives such as “one in, two out” to help businesses achieve regulatory compliance while not hindering growth. My own local enterprise partnership, covering Leicester and Leicestershire, served as a pilot in various initiatives to strengthen the relationship between businesses and regulators, which ranged from considering ways of improving information-sharing between regulators to working with groups such as the Federation of Small Businesses and chambers of commerce. That has been a priority, and we have seen some early successes which the Bill will undoubtedly further encourage.
According to the 2015 Leicester and Leicestershire business survey, 94% of employers saw regulators as professional and courteous, but just 49% felt that they were consulted by regulators when developing policies. [Interruption.] Opposition Members might want to listen to this. They might learn a few things about the importance of the Bill.
Those findings showed that there was considerable scope for further joint working and improvements that might be made by means of the Bill. [Interruption.] “Listen and learn” is the key today. [Interruption.] Opposition Members are more than welcome to intervene.
The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 commits future Governments to publishing, and then reporting on, their performance against a deregulation target, the business impact target. Little has been said about that by the Members who are now chuntering from a sedentary position.
Mr Iain Wright: I have just mentioned it.
Alberto Costa: The hon. Gentleman is more than welcome to intervene and comment on its benefits if he wishes to do so.
The Bill will extend the business impact target to include the actions of statutory regulators, and will ensure that they must carry out assessments of the economic impacts on business of any changes in their regulatory practices or policies. That will provide a wider focus for the Government to reduce regulatory burdens on businesses, thus enabling them to free up resources and boost productivity. It will ensure that there is even greater transparency in relation to the impact of regulation on business, as opposed to the opaqueness
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that we saw during the 13 long years of Labour misrule. It will enable regulators to contribute to the Government’s deregulation target of £10 billion of regulatory savings during the current Parliament, and—very importantly—it will give regulators more incentives to design and deliver policies that better meet the needs of British business.
Bringing the activities of regulators into the scope of the business impact target will ensure that the impact imposed on business by regulators is routinely measured and reported on—a move that was scorned by Opposition Members a matter of hours or even minutes ago. It will increase the clarity of the system, and give businesses greater assurance that any costs and benefits that are imposed on them will be thoroughly assessed. Legislating to extend the business impact target will most comprehensively achieve the increase in transparency that I have mentioned, and will bring about the reduction in burdens on businesses that Conservative Members wish to achieve. It represents not a small ambition, but a significant ambitious development of previous policies designed to improve the ways in which regulations are enforced.
This Bill will help to make sure that our United Kingdom is the best place in Europe to start and grow a business, and that people who work hard and start and run a business have the opportunity to succeed without inappropriate regulatory burdens suffocating their much needed enterprise.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Alberto Costa: No, I am going to wind-up. [Interruption.] I did offer many Members on the other side of the House the opportunity to intervene, but they chose not to do so.
This Enterprise Bill will help to promote a real reduction in red tape, which the Members opposite simply do not seem to understand, and it will encourage businesses to expand and in so doing create more jobs and help people in our country thrive. That is the key to a successful Enterprise Bill. This Bill will allow British enterprise to flourish in my constituency of South Leicestershire as well as across our United Kingdom.
4.17 pm
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab): May I start by apologising for having to leave shortly after my contribution, but I am meeting the prisons Minister, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), about enterprise in prisons and enterprising criminals—a debate about criminal entrepreneurs is for another day!
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa). He made quite a big deal about how Labour does not understand the needs of business. I gently remind him that it was his Government who announced the introduction of a new national living wage, and quite a lot of concern has been expressed by small businesses about how that is going to affect them, because there has been little consultation—[Interruption.] —as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) reminds me.
Alberto Costa: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
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Caroline Flint: No, I am going to make some progress.
I have to say that I think it is quite fraudulent to call this an Enterprise Bill; it would fail under the Trade Descriptions Act. What do we actually have? We have the creation of a small business commissioner, and, as has been said, we are not against that, but the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who has now left the Chamber, made it very clear that the danger in the creation of this post is that it will be meaningless—that the small business commissioner will not have the authority and power to do something about small businesses not being paid for their services in good time, which we have discussed so many times over so many years.
Also under this Bill, Ministers are considering how they can give regulators more responsibility for looking at the impact of anything they do on the businesses they regulate. I understand that as well; sometimes I think it would be simpler if we just put on every civil servant’s screensaver the words, “Why am I doing this, and is this really necessary?” to nudge them into thinking about what they are doing and how it is affecting not only businesses but other areas of public policy.
As for regulation, however, we have been here many times before. When the last Government had a policy, they talked about “one in, one out”. They advertised on websites for what regulations to scrap, but the problem was that they received many more suggestions for more regulations, not fewer, even from businesses themselves.
I would love to know the Government’s regulation scorecard. The Secretary of State did not talk about the savings for business, but the truth is that many Governments often leave their term in office with more regulations in place than they inherited. For me, regulation has to be shown to have a purpose, and I have no problem with getting rid of regulations that are out of date or need updating, but they are important to make sure we keep products and people safe, and to ensure fair competition. If this Bill is hinting that the reason why enterprise in this country is not succeeding is purely down to centrally imposed regulation, I suggest that the Government do not understand what we need to do. I do not believe that the banking collapse, which affected people in this country and around the world as both consumers and businesses, was to do with over-regulation.
Let us look to the European Union in this regard as well, because the EU REFIT programme has already led to the withdrawal—[Interruption.] I will thank my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] It would be great if the shadow Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), would let me finish my speech instead of taking interventions from those on the other side. As the House of Commons Library has confirmed, the EU REFIT programme has already led to the withdrawal of more than 400 proposals and to the repeal of some 6,000 legal measures in the past decade. That is good; that is what we want to see from the European Union.
To me, what is really important is the way in which Governments support and assist the development of foundation industries such as steel as well as the new emerging sectors in which businesses of all sizes have a stake. Truly, this Bill is disappointing in that regard. For those areas, it will be largely irrelevant. It could have done something to promote and protect responsible enterprise. It could also have brought in measures to
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protect UK-based firms that pay fair and responsible taxes from being undercut by global firms that offshore their profits beyond the reach of HMRC.
The Bill is also disappointing on apprenticeships. I welcome apprenticeships. For too long, there has been an imbalance between the support for those who go to university and the support for those for whom the way into a good career and job prospects is through an apprenticeship. I have some questions, however. I welcome the clearer definition of an apprenticeship. There was concern in the last Parliament about too many arrangements being badged as apprenticeships and not quite meeting the test.
I also have some questions about the Minister’s setting of targets for apprenticeships. The Bill appears to set out how the Government will meet their own apprenticeship target by creating obligations only on the public sector to provide those apprenticeships. If that is to be followed by specific targets for different public sector bodies, will she tell us what proportion of the Government’s target of 3 million apprenticeships is to be created by the public sector rather than by private business? I, too, want the public sector to be model trainers, to grow the future workforce and to have model apprenticeships. We should be aware, however, that many local authorities will soon be less than two thirds the size they were in 2010. Many have been forced to shed thousands of experienced public sector staff. If they are now to take on more apprentices, this could appear to be a case of sacking experienced staff and backfilling with apprentices.
If public sector bodies are to be required to help to meet the apprenticeship targets, why does the Bill not extend the right of public bodies to require apprenticeship quotas in their public procurement contracts, in the way that the Government have done with centrally issued contracts over a value of £10 million? By imposing targets only on the public sector, the Government appear to have little confidence that the private sector will step up to deliver the apprenticeships that the Government and the country need.
The UK Green Investment Bank was intended to be a body that could make long-term investments in green and sustainable technologies, and I think it has done a good job. It worries me that it is being privatised just to get it off the balance sheet, but I hope the points that have been made about the special share situation will ensure that its green ambitions are protected.
I am looking forward to serving on the Bill Committee. I am sure that we will have further discussions about Sunday trading, and I hope we will be able to ensure that the Bill adds up to more than it does at the moment.
4.23 pm
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con):
I thank the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for at least being supportive of the apprenticeship agenda. Let us see whether she votes for the Bill tonight. I support the Bill and would like to congratulate the Minister for Skills on the excellent measures relating to apprenticeships. He took the time last week to speak at the national apprenticeship awards, which, as the Prime Minister’s adviser on apprenticeships, I hosted. The Minister
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showed the commitment of this Government to recognising the brilliant achievements of existing apprentices and the desire to spread those opportunities even more widely.
I start by mentioning the national apprenticeship awards because they are a perfect illustration of the success that apprentices can achieve, and this Bill will play a key part in expanding that success even further. The event was attended by more than 800 apprentices and business people, all of whom had come together to celebrate. It was a celebration of what an apprenticeship had done for them personally or for their business—even though the great and the good of Great Britain plc and the future stars of our economy had to sit through almost five hours of me co-hosting the event.
I can share with the House the fact that the overriding emotion of that evening was huge optimism. There was optimism about the great careers stretching out before those apprentices, the extent of which those young people were just starting to glimpse for themselves. There was optimism about the new, well-skilled workforce that is pushing businesses to the next level, and about the better products and greater services that those apprenticeships can help to create. It was a humbling moment standing in that room and seeing what apprenticeships can do for both apprentices and businesses. This Bill is all about extending these opportunities.
One nation Conservatism—compassionate Conservatism —has to be, at its root, about providing opportunity: an opportunity for everyone, wherever they have come from, whoever they are, whatever they dream of doing or being, to be provided with the resources they need to achieve that. Great Britain is a country of great opportunity. We sometimes forget that much too easily, but I know it so well, having come from Iraq to being a Member of this House. I want everyone—every single person in this country—to have the opportunities I had. This Bill provides the measures to ensure that the next generation can find opportunity in this country, through apprenticeships, a route often as good, if not much better, than a traditional university degree.
I am delighted by the measures in this Bill to expand apprenticeships in the public sector and protect the quality of the brand.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP): I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying about apprenticeships, but does he also accept that there must be a rebalancing and that that cannot be at the expense of public sector workers? It has to be done thoughtfully and in a fair way.
Nadhim Zahawi: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I will address the public sector element of what I think is a very positive measure in a moment.
As someone who worked in marketing in a previous life, I know that when trying to sell something to someone, it is very important that the product is high quality. That is why I congratulate the Minister on adding legal protection to the term “apprenticeship”. It is vital that that is done; apprenticeships must be aspirational, and any misuse of this word on low-quality courses can be extremely damaging. Both the apprentice and the employer are let down by poor-quality courses, and have their time wasted. Even worse, it could mean that they are put off from being involved in the apprenticeships agenda ever again. Even a small minority
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can damage the brand and detract from the majority of good news stories which should be shining through. In my work as the co-chair of the Apprenticeship Delivery Board, I have spent time speaking to many businesses, both small and large, and I have found that there is a real appetite to hire apprentices, bring younger people into the company and protect the skills base for years to come. We cannot let them down with poor quality and chip away at this good will.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the public sector, and the 2.3% public sector apprenticeship target is equally important. As we move towards achieving 3 million apprenticeship starts, it is only right that the public sector delivers its fair share. The public sector employs 16% of England’s workforce but lags behind on apprenticeships, and that is a real shame. There are many brilliant careers both in this country and on offer in our public sector. I am delighted that apprentices will be given a route into our civil service and have this great opportunity provided to them. But this is not just about providing opportunities for apprentices; I believe this provides a huge benefit to the civil service itself.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in order to achieve that higher level of apprenticeship and to create the apprenticeships themselves, there needs to be a working relationship between further education colleges, universities and the business community?
Nadhim Zahawi: That is absolutely right, and the hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. It is why we are organising a roadshow for FE colleges so that best practice can be shared. The Secretary of State has met all the universities, including the Russell Group ones, to explain to them the opportunity here, in both the public sector and the private sector. Degree apprenticeships are going to be a massive opportunity for our universities and for our public sectors. Employers have told me that they are likely to run graduate recruitment alongside apprenticeships, as a means of using the apprenticeship levy funds. That is a real opportunity for universities, because a lot of those employers will be looking for degree apprenticeships. They want to hire the best people as apprentices at a young age, getting them into their company earlier, so that they can develop their skills, build loyalty and enhance productivity. It would be a real shame if the public sector lost out on those talented men and women by not offering enough places and not competing for that talent. I am a firm believer that for any organisation, the most important resource is the human resource.
Good government requires excellent people. Apprenticeships are key to ensuring that that resource remains strong and that the public sector can compete for talent. We must remember that 3 million apprenticeship starts are 3 million chances—3 million opportunities to expand one’s skills, to get a real job, to earn a wage, to contribute, to take part and to get on and do better. The measures in the Bill are vital in meeting that target and we must welcome them. I am delighted to support them tonight.
4.30 pm
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab):
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). This is a big, clunky Bill that covers four
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Departments, but today we have the captain of the ship, the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, to take it through on her own. She is the sole survivor on the Government Front Bench. I hope that she will be a listening Minister, and will show that when she responds to the debate.
This is not an inspiring Bill, as many have said, but it does support apprentices, and I welcome that. The provisions in part 7 on industrial development will assist the roll-out of telecommunications and broadband to reflect the economic realities of the 21st century. My main issue is with part 8, which covers the restrictions on exit payments.
On apprentices, I am sure that we all agree that training and providing young people with skills and workplace experience is a good thing, but it is vital that we have real training for real apprentices, and that we have real skills for the future. We should not consider the targets alone; we should consider not just the quantity but the quality of apprenticeship schemes.
Part 4 applies mainly to apprenticeships in England, but some provisions apply to England and Wales. Indeed, the Employment and Training Act 1973 applies to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Contracts for apprenticeships are contracts for employment as defined in the Employment Rights Act 1996, so conditions for apprentices are UK-wide. English votes for English law might apply to the Bill, so I want clarification from the Minister on that point. I know that now is not the time to go over the anomalies of EVEL, but it is important that there is clarification because of the cross-border issues. People in Wales might have apprenticeships with companies in England, and such provisions would therefore apply to them. However, it is good that the Government are valuing apprenticeships and I support them on that.
The provisions on industrial development allow financial assistance of £10 million to £30 million to be given to projects under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982 without a resolution from the House of Commons. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) said, that is a good thing, but a very small thing. Again, I want clarification from the Minister—who is concentrating, I am sure—that this applies to Welsh Ministers. If it is a UK project in Wales, will Welsh Ministers have the resources to roll out broadband in Wales?
I welcome these provisions, which are designed to get telecommunications rolled out across the United Kingdom. I have long been an advocate of universal broadband and I welcome the Prime Minister and the Government’s U-turn on universal coverage. From time to time—[Interruption.] The Minister says “What?”, but if she had listened to Department for Culture, Media and Sport Ministers she would have known that they were dead against it up until Christmas, and that they have now changed their minds. I hope that roll-out will now happen. I would like a pilot scheme on the Isle of Anglesey. It is an ideal place to have it: an island community on the periphery of this country. If it works there, it can be rolled out across the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Bill will cap exit payments, and that is important. The proposal is designed for city hall chief executives, but the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) was wrong to say that it will apply just to fat
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cats. Nurses are not fat cats, and workers on nuclear installations in my constituency are not fat cats. We need to look at this issue.
The Treasury has the power to restrict the public sector workers covered by this measure. I would add to the list of exclusions, which already includes employees of the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Magnox employees in my constituency, who do difficult, dangerous nuclear decommissioning work. They have been caught up in this because the ONS deems them to be in the public sector. The Secretary of State said, “We don’t listen to the ONS.” I would ask the Government to look at exemptions for Magnox workers. There are 23 constituencies that have Magnox estate, with Magnox workers, in them—14 are Conservative, five are Labour, three are Scottish National party and one is Plaid Cymru, so this is not a partisan trade union issue. This is indeed important.
These workers feel let down. One of the 120 constituents who have written to me said:
“To retain highly skilled workers in the nuclear sector, employees were promised that their contractual employment and pension arrangements would be safeguarded”.
If the Bill passes in its present form and does not exempt Magnox workers, they will be unfairly penalised. I think that that is an unintended consequence of the Bill, which is, as I said, intended to get the so-called fat cats. However, I am talking about decent, hard-working men and women on the Magnox estate who have been in the sector for a long time. When they negotiated their wages and their terms and conditions, they would often forgo wage increases to better their pension pots. They feel let down that the Government are looking to take away their conditions of service.
Kevin Brennan: Is it not also important to note not just that these workers should be classified by the ONS as being in the private sector, but that they are in fact private sector workers, yet they are being caught up in this Bill very unfairly?
Albert Owen: Yes, the Government recently put the estate out to tender, and it was won by a private company. Although, technically, these are Magnox workers, they work for various private companies in the decommissioning sector. I do think that this is an unintended consequence.
I ask the Minister to talk with her Treasury colleagues about this issue to get an exemption. Leaving this to mandarins in the Treasury is not good enough. Magnox workers feel let down by the Government, and the Government can and should act to exempt them from the Bill. I repeat: they are not fat cats, but decent workers.
If I had more time, I could talk about the Green Investment Bank, which I supported under the last Government. I worry about its privatisation, and my concerns about moving it to the private sector are very real.
I am surprised to see Sunday trading as part of this process. We should have a proper debate about the issue, and it should have been in the Bill so that we could see exactly what the proposals entail. The public do not want changes, although some businesses do, and I understand that. However, I think we have the balance right as it stands now on Sunday trading, and
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that is why I oppose changes to leave decisions on Sunday trading to individual areas. We should keep Sunday special—that is what the House agreed when it had the opportunity to have a full debate, but it has been denied that opportunity now.
Let us get those exemptions for workers, let us support apprentices and let us roll out broadband through grants.
4.38 pm
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con): I am delighted to be called so early to speak in the debate. It will not surprise colleagues that I want to talk about one specific element of the Bill: pubs. I should draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, not just because I am the chairman of the all-party beer group, and I see lots of our members in the Chamber today, but because Burton is the home of not only beer and British brewing, but three of the country’s largest pubcos—Marston’s, Punch and Greene King. Obviously, therefore, the issues in the Bill are hugely important to not just my constituents and the people employed in those companies, but publicans and communities across the country.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con): These days, pubs are not only competing with other pubs—they also have to compete with high-street cafés such as Starbucks. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is therefore essential that we encourage investment in pub facilities?
Andrew Griffiths: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he does to support pubs, not just in his constituency but in this Chamber, in standing up for British pubs and British brewing. He is absolutely right: this is a competitive business. Pubs are not just competing with each other for trade—for business—but with the likes of Starbucks. It is therefore absolutely essential that we allow them to invest in their estates. I will come on to that point later.
I have to admit that I was one of those who opposed the market-rent-only legislation when it first came in during the previous Parliament, because I was concerned about unintended consequences. We all want our to pubs to thrive, our pub estate to grow, and our pubs to be successful and pay a good living to the publicans who run them, but we must also be aware of unintended consequences. I warned of repeating the mistakes we made with the beer orders. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you are not old enough to remember the beer orders coming before this House, but that mistake, with the Government intervening in the marketplace and sticking their oar in, led to the break-up of the successful breweries and, indeed, to the pubcos that we have today. We have to be very careful.
The debate on this subject has been contentious; there has been a great deal of heat, and sometimes it has become somewhat unpleasant. I congratulate the Minister on the work that she has done in finding a way through this. She has not only shown an immense interest in the subject in talking to both sides and properly understanding the implications of what we do as a Government, but has not been shy in standing up to both sides. We know that there is a famous tradition of female Conservative MPs handbagging people around the table in order to get the best deal possible, and that is what the Minister has done to find a way forward. We must not forget
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that pubs are not charities—they are businesses that employ 1 million people across our country and raise £21 billion for the Exchequer. We must therefore make sure that we have the right conditions to allow them to grow as businesses, and that is what the Minister is able to do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) mentioned investment. I am pleased that the Minister’s proposals allow publicans to opt out of—to waive their right to—an MRO for the purpose of significant investment. It is absolutely right that our pubs need to be the best offering possible. They need to have good facilities, nice loos, and good heating. They need to be pleasant environments if people are going to go there and spend their money. He is absolutely right that they are competing with the likes of Starbucks. If we want people to pump money into our pubs, we have to give them security in making that investment. Why would the likes of Punch in my constituency invest a couple of hundred thousand pounds, perhaps even £300,000, in a pub to renovate it if it was likely to lose control of it in just 12 months’ time? The simple answer is that it would not. The Minister’s decision to allow the opt-out from—the waiving of the right to—an MRO will give some comfort to the industry and allow such important investment to go ahead.
I am concerned about red tape. The adjudicator, when introduced, could potentially have to deal with some 14,000 pub tenants. There is therefore a real risk that the adjudicator could be swamped with complaints. I hope that the Minister will be well aware of that when she brings forward the secondary legislation on how this thing will actually work. I am also concerned about the amount of red tape when somebody signs up for a pub tenancy.
Toby Perkins: Given how busy publicans are, they do not want to spend their time at the adjudicator. They want to be serving punters and getting on with running their business. What does the hon. Gentleman think it says about the way the industry is currently working if the setting up of an adjudicator creates the likelihood that it will be swamped because all those publicans are so unhappy?
Andrew Griffiths: I do not think creating an adjudicator does that at all. Very few tenants come forward with complaints under the current voluntary scheme. But as in any other sphere, when a new way to complain is advertised, people will undoubtedly come forward. Some of those complaints will be valid, but many will not be. We need to make sure that we do not ruin a perfectly workable system by allowing it to be flooded with the wrong kind of complaints.
The requirement first set out by the Government would have meant that a pubco had to provide more than 80 pieces of information to somebody who wanted to sign up for a tenancy, and those would all have had to be checked off and a receipt accepted. That compares with about 10 pieces of information that have to be provided to somebody signing a normal commercial lease. I agree that we should make sure that tenants walk into the arrangement with their eyes open and with all the information, a business plan, advice from a financial adviser and a clear understanding of what that business is currently doing and what their earning potential
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is, but we should not make it impossible for a pubco to sign up a willing tenant who understands the business and understands what they are taking on.
On time scales, the suggestion is that the measure will come in at the end of May. Time is ticking and I hope the Minister will be attuned to the fact that this is a huge thing for tenants and pubcos to understand. Will she consider some interim measures to make sure that the measure can be introduced in a manageable way, and that the information does not swamp both tenants and pubcos?
Finally, I wholeheartedly support Sunday trading, as it would be good for the pub trade. The Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers and the British Beer and Pub Association say that encouraging people to come into our town centres on a Sunday to do shopping would also be good for our pubs. I entirely support that, but I remind the House of a letter that I received from Peter Hardingham, the manager of the Octagon shopping centre in Burton. Urging me to lobby for the important devolution to councils of Sunday trading regulation, he wrote: “Such a change in the law is critical to allow bricks and mortar retailers to compete with online retailers and to satisfy the customer demand that exists.” That is absolutely right.
The legislation, devolving the power to local authorities, giving our local councillors control over what is best for their high streets, will allow our shops to compete with online retailers. We can order from the internet on our phone and get something delivered on a Sunday afternoon. How can our shops compete with those retailers? The measure is a great idea and I hope the House will get behind it. I thank the Minister for her work on pubs. Please listen to our concerns, and I will be in the Lobby supporting Sunday trading.
4.48 pm
Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind): I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. In general terms, I have to describe the Bill as a missed opportunity. On the occasions that I have spoken in the House, I have reiterated my support for enterprise and how important I consider business to be, particularly small business, not just in creating wealth and jobs, but for the vital role it plays in our society and on our high street. In my maiden speech I commented that I will be
“watching to see whether . . . an appropriate level of ambition and vision”
is in place, and I asked whether the Enterprise Bill would
“provide measures that really encourage and support small businesses?”
“Will it start to take steps to address the chronic lack of available liquidity for those businesses?”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 630.]
I reiterate the comments of my fellow member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), that something must be done, and I am glad that BIS is taking that forward. The problem is not just liquidity, but tax. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who is no longer in his place, talked about tax cuts. However, it is complexity and the regulations that still inhibit businesses with ambition that start to grow. Much, much more could have been done in that respect.
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Where are the measures to encourage research and development, by which I mean grants, not loans? Where are the measures for innovation, for emerging sectors such as technology, and for manufacturing, which still trails behind at 10%?
The Federation of Small Businesses is correct to ask what specific powers the small business commissioner will have. I and businesses are worried that it is this voluntary regime that will be trying to effect serious change. It is almost like Sergeant Wilson from “Dad’s Army” saying, “I wonder would you mind awfully if you could pay this bill at some point.” I do not think that that is going to work. I issue a challenge to the UK Government. The Scottish Government have had measures in place since 2009 whereby public sector bodies have to pay their supply chain after 30 days. How is it possible for us to do that, but not the UK Government?
My biggest concern is about the UK Green Investment Bank, which nestles on the border of my constituency and was one of the coalition Government’s few success stories. It was set up in November 2012 and has invested in the green economy in every nation in the UK. I understand that it was always planned to become an enduring institution that operated independently of Government, but I am concerned that that process is being rushed for political reasons and that its green focus and its headquarters in Edinburgh will be put at risk as a result.
The GIB has made a positive contribution. It has become the No. 1 investor in the green economy, taking a 50% share of the green investment market. Projects it has funded have removed millions of tonnes of waste from landfill; increased the amount of energy produced from renewables to power the equivalent of 3.9 million homes; and cut this country’s CO2 emissions by more than 4 million tonnes.
More importantly, the bank is now making a profit, which could have been reinvested in any number of ways. As a state-owned institution, the money it makes could be of benefit to the taxpayer. Why do Government asset sales privatise profit and nationalise debt?
The green focus of the bank must be maintained. The Environmental Audit Committee has suggested that there is a
“risk that a privatised GIB could invest in areas which may damage its reputation and undermine its role and leadership in the green economy.”
That said, I welcome the amendments tabled by Lord Teverson, who suggested setting up a structure with a single special share owned by a charitable company, whose trustees would have to agree unanimously to any changes to the company objectives, with “no public input whatever”. That is absolutely vital.
Lord Kelvin has provided reassurances that he sees no need to move the bank away from Edinburgh, which was chosen as its headquarters, but that is not the point. During my lifetime in business, I have seen a steady drip of key functions that should be maintained at a headquarters being moved to London. That is what I am concerned about—not a wholesale, lock, stock and barrel move, but a dripping, corrosive effect that many areas of the UK have experienced to their detriment. The Scottish Government’s view is that a legislative consent motion could be required, because, if there is a
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softening in the focus on the importance of green projects, that could impact on what the Scottish Government are trying to do.
In general, the Bill clearly has some positive elements, but it is nowhere near ambitious enough and nowhere near the sort of vision that I would personally like to see in supporting business, particularly small business.
4.54 pm
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con): It is an honour to follow my fellow member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Michelle Thomson).
The Bill will contribute to the UK continuing to be a leading nation in supporting businesses that show the initiative and courage to start up on their own. I want to touch on three provisions—those relating to late payments, late insurance payments and the capping of exit payments —all of which not only highlight the positive changes being made to business culture, but support the Government’s offer to businesses.
I have always believed that to ensure that the economy continues from strength to strength, we must start by repaying the contributions made to it by the smaller businesses in the UK. They employ more than 15 million people across the UK; that is 48% of our private sector employment. The provisions in the Bill aimed at making the UK a better place for them to go into business should create an encouraging environment in which they can carry out their day-to-day work and thrive at business.
The proposed small business commissioner will address many of the issues that smaller firms face when dealing with larger firms. Late payments are a problem that most small firms have to deal with regularly, and securing those payments can prove to be a costly and long-drawn-out process. I was shocked to read the numbers: SMEs in the UK collectively spend more than £10 billion a year on trying to recover late payments. That figure is simply unacceptable. I have first-hand knowledge of how late payments by larger businesses, which often have a late payment policy, can cripple small businesses.
In the current system, too often, payment disputes cannot be resolved without cases going to court. That process is limiting for small businesses, and the costs can spiral out of control, which makes it a barely viable option for SMEs. A recent study found that one in five businesses in the Derby region is the victim of late payments. Those late payments are a primary factor in a fifth of corporate insolvencies. That element of business culture must change. We must show smaller businesses that other options are available to them, that advice and support are on offer, and that we will not directly hit their business cash flow. Of course, large firms can, if they choose to, fund such procedures, but the expectation that SMEs will do so is unreasonable.
Andrew Griffiths: My hon. Friend is making an effective and strong case in support of small businesses, and in describing the problems that they face with late payments. Does she also find that small businesses are struggling with deferred payments, over longer terms? The fact that they are not being paid by bigger firms within 90 days, or even 180 days in some cases, is severely affecting their ability to survive.
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Amanda Solloway: Absolutely, and the insolvency record proves that that is the case. We need to stop that awful practice.
It is important to maintain the ability of any business, large or small, to trade. Incidents sometimes unfold that are out of the control of the business owner, and they often necessitate insurance claims. The pay-out is often vital to the survival of the business but, as things stand, there is no legal obligation to pay valid insurance claims within a reasonable time. With no timeframe, businesses are often left in limbo about when they can realistically expect to start trading again, and the knock-on effects can be disastrous. I welcome the Government’s commitment to combating unreasonably late payments.
Finally, I want to mention the six-figure exit payments to public sector workers. Such payments are required for a variety of reasons, such as voluntary or compulsory redundancies, and although I acknowledge that it is important that those payments be fair, we need to make sure that they are not disproportionate to the modern place of work. I reference Derby City Council, where a couple of redundancies led to payments of £140,000 and £180,000 respectively. It does not seem right to me that the taxpayer has to fund extortionate pay-offs for public sector workers.
I have no doubt that the Bill will contribute to a much more transparent, friendly and desirable business culture in the UK. It will create an environment that encourages more people to start a business here, and it will cement the UK’s position as one of the world’s leading nations in supporting business and enterprise.
4.59 pm
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): I start by drawing the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Whenever I hear the Secretary of State speak, I am struck by the fact that I am listening to someone who appears to believe that Government do not work very well, and that business always knows better than Government. Indeed, he has set out to prove that by bringing to us a Bill that does not even contain its most contentious element. I am very concerned about the Sunday trading legislation, both because the Government are heading in the wrong direction and because this is a really important democratic matter.
The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) —he has not been with us today—is very passionately against any extension of Sunday trading. Having read all the briefings and the Bill, he may very well walk into the Lobby at 7 o’clock in support of the Bill, without realising that he is actually supporting an extension of Sunday trading, as he would have heard had he been in the Chamber. He may very well be contacted by people who had previously been in touch with him, saying, “Why did you vote for Sunday trading?” He would reply that he did not know that he was doing so. How the Government are dealing with Sunday trading is an important democratic matter.
Melanie Onn: Does my hon. Friend agree that the current Sunday trading laws represent a great British compromise? They allow retailers to trade, customers to shop and staff to work, while Sunday remains a special day, permitting shop workers to spend time with their family.
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Toby Perkins: I absolutely agree. We had long and very passionate debates about that during the last Parliament, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics, when the Government made what they said at the time was a short-term change to the Sunday trading legislation.
I have an interest in this matter in that my son works at Morrisons and is often there on a Sunday. One thing that will happen—I have had very few representations in favour of this—is that the supermarkets, finding that the others are opening, will have to start to open. That will not add any extra business, but it will extend or spread out the shopping week. It will mean that people have to work very late on Sundays, and people wanting to work during the week will find there are fewer shifts available during the week. No more business will be created; it will just be spread over a longer period. The period after 4 o’clock on a Sunday is vital to the convenience store sector, which is under incredible pressure.
Andrew Griffiths: I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman and I understand his concerns, but why does he think that the workers in Sainsbury’s and Tesco deserve to have their Sundays protected as special, but not the workers in Sainsbury’s Local or Tesco Express? They work for the same business, but one set of workers gets protection and the other does not.
Toby Perkins: The hon. Gentleman asks a legitimate question. All of those questions were debated at the time of the original legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) said, a compromise was reached. The existing compromise is vital for the convenience store sector. The number employed in large Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsbury’s stores far outweighs the number employed in those other stores. I will not say anything more about that matter, but the exchange between the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the Secretary of State entirely exposes the fact that many people do not entirely understand what they are being asked to vote for today.
I come to this subject as someone who ran his own small business for five and half years before entering this place and who spent the previous 20 years working in a range of medium-sized businesses—I was once a human being. I have also had the opportunity, as a shadow Business Minister, to debate many of the issues.
I was struck by what the hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) said about the impact of late payments on small businesses in particular. Late payments beget late payments: when someone receives payments late from their customers, they end up being late payers to their suppliers, and so it goes on. She is absolutely right to say that action needs to be taken. She may want to research the amendments that we tabled to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill during the last Parliament. Those were far more powerful proposals, and I may encourage my Front-Bench colleagues to dust them off and have another look at them. Those serious legislative proposals would have outlawed late payment and removed the incentive for late payment.
When discussing late payments, we must understand why they exist. Payments are made late because businesses like to keep the money in their account for the purposes of cash flow. There will be an opportunity for a small business to go off to the commissioner and report their customer, but in the course of that process the big
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company may well have paid the small business. That will not get the small business paid any quicker; it just puts in place a bureaucratic process. The idea of a small business commissioner in itself is not a bad one—it may well deal with some of the disputes between suppliers—but the idea that it is the solution to late payments is entirely wrong. It will make very little difference to whether or not companies are paid late.
The hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) spoke about major companies that are setting out with purchasing terms of 90 or 180 days. They are paying after 90 days and they are not even late. The Government may say that, if companies do not pay within 60 days, they cannot be classified as a prompt payer under the prompt payment code, but these are relatively small measures. They do not provide legislative protection against major firms in the way that the amendment I proposed in the last Parliament would have done. I urge the Government and all members of the Bill Committee to look at how we can strengthen the proposals, because this is a matter of real importance.
It always strikes me that the Secretary of State believes all regulation to be a bad thing. Recently, I met the UK Weighing Federation, which had a reception in Parliament. It said that the lack of policing of the regulations in the weighing industry leaves the UK market open to cheap foreign imports that are not compliant and that undercut good-quality British manufacturing.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) that we do not want unnecessary burdens, but we do want a regulatory regime that protects not only the consumer, but British businesses that are doing things in the right way. A similar case was made by NAPIT recently in respect of the electrical competent persons register and the lack of policing of building regulations.
Part 7 includes measures on the pubs code. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say today that the Government have listened and learned from the discussions in another place, and that the four triggers that were originally put in place when the legislation passed in that famous defeat of the Government in the last Parliament will be retained in the pubs code. It is incredibly important that the code continues to operate in that way.
It is important to remind Members who were not here in the last Parliament why we decided to legislate for the pubs industry in a unique way; we have not used that for any other industry. There was a simple unfairness in the relationship between the major pub companies, with all the power they had, and the small individuals who owned a single pub, who often put their life savings into it, only to find that the information that they had going into the relationship was very misleading. As a result, those people often found that they were not in a position to get the deal that they thought they were signing up to. It was incredibly important that we came up with an arrangement where they had the opportunity, at certain trigger points, to say, “I don’t think this relationship is working for me. I’d like to take my chances on the open market and buy beers from wherever I can.”
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD): Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that pubcos are misrepresenting their investments and seeking, via that loophole, to game the legislation and avoid the market rent-only option?
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Toby Perkins: I am very concerned about that and I think that we need to inspect it. We want to encourage investment into the industry, but it is wrong if publicans are being told that an investment that was basically just to tidy the place up means that they no longer have the MRO option.
In summary, the Bill will do very little harm but will not do anything like the amount of good it could do. We have an opportunity to make it a Bill that is transformational for small businesses by ending the scourge of late payments, having a regulatory framework that really supports British businesses, and ensuring that publicans are supported and that small businesses have a fair opportunity to compete. At the moment, the Government are missing that opportunity. I hope that they put that right.
Mr Speaker: I am afraid that the time limit for Back-Bench speeches has to be reduced to six minutes, with immediate effect.
5.8 pm
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con): The Bill contains a wide range of specific provisions that are diverse in their detail but united by a common thread: a belief in business, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, as the driver of growth and jobs, and a determination to support businesses and make this country the best place in Europe to start and grow a business. Indeed, there is a determination to make this country a place where those who strive and work hard have the opportunity to flourish—something that the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise is very committed to.
The past five years have seen the deficit halve, the number of jobs go up and growth go up. The economic recovery in this country has been driven by businesses and workers, and by those who have taken the brave decision to set up a new business. We should be in no doubt that businesses have done the heavy lifting of economic recovery, and it is they, not the Government, that have delivered growth. However, the legislative and regulatory environment plays a large role in their ability to do so, which is why I welcome the intent and content of the Bill. Before my election to this House I worked in businesses that ranged from small privately owned firms to FTSE-listed companies, so this is a subject close to my heart.
On the specifics of the Bill, I welcome the establishment of a small business commissioner. I know that in the other place some called for that role to be strengthened, and I agree with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). None the less, I believe that the proposal represents a significant and important step forward in helping to redress the balance between small and large businesses in respect of late payment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) set out, to a small business late payments are not some minor matter because they can have a huge effect on cash flow. A large business may be able to absorb late payments or use their lawyers to pursue payment, but for a small business it can be the difference between that company’s survival or collapse. I hope that further consideration will be given to the role of small business commissioner, and to extending its scope to include the public sector and possibly late
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repayments by HMRC. Although HMRC is keen to be paid swiftly, it often repays rather less quickly. Similarly, the prompt payment code continues to play an important role, and I hope that its effectiveness will continue to be monitored and reinforced.
Another sphere in which late payments can be a problem is late insurance pay-outs. Following a flood, fire or similar event, getting a swift insurance pay-out can mean the difference between a business rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes, or not rising at all. Although concerns were raised by Lord Flight about the impact of the Bill’s provisions on insurance markets, I welcome them. I hope, however—like all of us, I am sure—that insurers will seek to pay promptly, regardless of any legislative stick.
In my remaining minutes, I wish to touch briefly on other aspects of the Bill. First, this Government have an impressive record of increased apprentice numbers, and an ambitious but achievable target of many more. Apprenticeships are real jobs that teach real skills and help the long-term employment prospects of many people, and I believe that the public sector should play its part and welcome the skills of those talented young people. It is vital that apprenticeships do what they say on the tin, and that they are genuine apprenticeships in which everyone can have confidence. Like guilds in the middle ages and the original apprenticeships, the Bill seeks to protect that quality and the apprenticeship brand, which I welcome.
Finally, part 7 of the Bill increases the maximum amount of aid payable before parliamentary authorisation is needed from £10 million to £30 million, which is a sensible reflection of inflation and cost since the 1980s. I also welcome the extension of the provision to include broadband services. Broadband is increasingly a vital public service, and it is essential to businesses, especially SMEs in rural areas and places such as my constituency. I hope that such support ensures that a good deal is achieved for the customer and not just for telecommunication companies, and that public money does not inadvertently create or reinforce market share or quasi-monopolistic provision by particular telecoms providers, but instead fosters competition and drives a customer-focused service. That means not just coverage, but new firms being connected swiftly and not facing myriad delays, obstructions and a poor service when getting themselves up and running.
Britain is growing and jobs are increasing, and that success is down to the work of businesses and those who work in them in this country. I am proud to support a Government and Minister who are placing trust in business, and the creation of conditions in which it can thrive, at the heart of the Government’s agenda. The Bill helps to deliver that and should be welcomed by businesses and workers alike, and indeed by all Members of the House.
5.14 pm
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab): This debate is vital for our economy, particularly if the Government are ever to put any meat on the bones of the so-called northern powerhouse. In a week when jobs have been moved from Sheffield to central London, and amid rumours that the chief executive of Tech North has resigned because of attempts by Whitehall to centralise that company in London, Ministers should be increasingly worried about how they can justify such a lofty term.
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The missed opportunities the Bill represents have been admirably expressed by hon. Members and by those in the other place, whether on improving finance to SMEs, a broadened scope and sharper teeth for a small business commissioner, or some real vision for our renewables industry rather than a further undermining of investor confidence and security.
The focus of my remarks today will be on the cap for exit payments for civil servants. Labour Members are all for the best possible use of taxpayers’ money. We are well aware that the headlines that disguise the real impact of the measures—to clamp down on pay-outs for so-called fat cat civil servants—will be very appealing, particularly at a time when so many people are still struggling. The Government know all too well, however, that that is not the whole tale.
On the face of it, this is a wholly reasonable policy. There are, however, several issues relating to employer flexibility, the public purse, people suffering from ill health, whistleblowers and staff morale at a time of huge change. I hope they can be ironed out in Committee. The proposals come at a time when we are about to see changes to the rules on recovery of exit payments and a consultation on reducing redundancy terms across the civil service. The latest proposals unilaterally override recently revised terms and conditions, and undermine agreements made at the highest levels of the Government’s own employer representative organisations.
The recent exit payment policy for the NHS was signed off by the Secretary of State in February last year, when NHS trade unions entered into an agreement with NHS Employers and the Department of Health to apply an absolute cap on exit payments. After extensive negotiations, it was agreed that section 16 redundancy payments would be set out by a formula that recognises length of service as its key element. This was implemented in only April last year and is on the back of Lord Maude telling civil servants in the previous Parliament that their settlements would be sustainable for a generation. We know from the Government’s own survey work that morale in the civil service is at an all-time low, with workers feeling year on year that they do not trust their leadership. Is that any wonder, when the rug is constantly being pulled from under their feet?
Toby Perkins: My hon. Friend is making an incredibly important case. Does she agree that there is a bitter irony in a Secretary of State, who obviously does not believe in government, spending £200,000 on employing consultants to come up to the northern powerhouse, shut the Sheffield office and move all the jobs down to London?
Louise Haigh: I completely agree. That point was made forcibly in the urgent question last Friday. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills workers were watching and were horrified by the Minister’s response to that question. It is not understandable that those people should be concerned that their jobs are only secure for the time being, until the Government can force through weakened redundancy terms? Given the announcement last week, people across the civil service will understandably be further concerned.
On the specific issues, people who have given long service to the public sector—midwives, nurses, librarians, social workers; people whom we, on either side of the
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House, could not describe as fat cats—have dedicated their lives to improving society. Is the Minister comfortable that these incredible workers will be impacted by the cap on exit payments? Why, when this policy was proposed last year by the Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), were people earning less than £27,000 explicitly exempted to
“protect the very small number of low earning, long-serving public servants”?
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, on the one hand, the Government are always ready to praise the work and contribution of public sector workers, in particular at the lower end of the scale, but that, on the other, it seems they are not ready to recognise that financially when those workers come to the end of their careers and face the difficult decisions that have to be taken by management?
Louise Haigh: Exactly. That is a really important point, given that this is a clear U-turn in Government policy following the announcement last year. There is absolutely no such exemption in the Bill. In the NHS, for example, even without the inclusion of pension strain payments, according to research by the union Unison, the proposed cap will affect nurses, midwives and paramedics with long service. These issues were the subject of very high level negotiations, where a higher level cap was set to mitigate against penalising long service in key front-line services. For this reason, will the Minister consider exempting people with salaries on or below average earnings?
On industrial relations, the exit payment cap will be implemented across a range of public service areas that already have fair, transparent and effective procedures in place which arise from collective agreements negotiated between employers and trade unions that are sensitive to the specific issues facing each sector. If we have anything to learn from the junior doctors’ action, it is that good industrial relations are vital and that we should not legislate haphazardly to weaken terms and conditions.
The Secretary of State said we should move away from the “Whitehall knows best” attitude—I could not agree more—but the Bill weakens that ambition by imposing an arbitrary cap across the civil service on exit payments and by restricting the freedom and flexibility that employers require to manage restructuring and redundancies effectively, at a time when public sector employers require it most. The public sector is in the middle of its most dramatic budget cuts in decades, and employers are having to restructure almost every aspect of public services to meet their new budgetary constraints. In moving the goalposts in the middle of an extended period of large-scale reorganisation, without an initial period of protection, particularly for staff over 50, the Government are further limiting the opportunity for employers fairly to reconsider strategic and operational decisions made in previous reorganisations and planned to be effected in stages on the assumption that current agreements and policies would apply. Will the Minister therefore consider a grace period for public sector employers undergoing reorganisation?
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On the public purse, the Government seek to justify the cap solely on the basis of the cost of payments to staff in the public sector between 2011 and 2014. This is the only evidence provided in their consultation, but it fails to recognise that, during the same period, employment in the civil service fell by 107,350, under the current civil service compensation scheme arrangements. No evidence is provided to demonstrate that the cap will deliver value-for-money savings, as changes in the compensation payments naturally affect the number of staff willing to exit the public sector, which might engender higher costs elsewhere.
As for the coalition Government’s early conciliation scheme, which has actually worked quite well, the proposals could have a perverse impact by diverting people to tribunals, where settlements will not be capped, and avoiding settlements at this optimal stage. Ministers should therefore consider exempting such conciliation payments from the cap.
Finally, two more important exceptions should be considered: first, whistleblowers, and secondly, people retiring on ill-health grounds. Whistleblowing is a vital part of our democracy, and capping settlements in such cases could easily deter people from blowing the whistle, given that this often puts their livelihoods and reputations at risk. The Government have made clear their intention not to include those retiring on ill-health grounds and that this will be put in secondary legislation, so will the Minister take this opportunity to make it clear that this is the case and that such people will be explicitly exempted?
5.22 pm
David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con): I believe that, thanks to the Bill, small businesses will be able to achieve their goals. We are removing red tape and implementing policies that will let them get on with running their businesses and helping to grow our economy further, on both a national and, equally importantly, a local scale. I am sure that all colleagues would welcome that.
In my constituency, it is possible to see how enterprise has been able to flourish in recent years. Since 2010, some 5,800 new apprenticeships have been created, thanks to the Government’s long-term economic plan—that means over 5,000 more young people in my area in work and learning valuable skills that will help them to pursue a full-time career and get on in life. Every apprentice I have met when I have visited businesses in my constituency has been positive about the experience and their future plans. It is crucial, therefore, that the Government meet their goal of delivering 3 million apprenticeships and continue the great progress being made in constituencies such as mine.
Apprenticeships are crucial to allowing young people a valuable insight into industry and teaching them many valuable skills they could not have picked up in the classroom. We all acknowledge that university or college is not for everyone. Apprenticeships allow everyone an equal opportunity to enter the workplace. I saw just last week on a visit to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden how important apprenticeships were to the performing arts industry. From set designers to costume makers and stage managers, apprentices are crucial to passing down knowledge from one generation to the next. Those skills benefit other industries, as apprentices
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go on to work in other areas, such as fashion design, and secure the survival of the creative industries. I am sure that the award-winning theatre in my constituency, the Royal and Derngate, will also benefit.
For that reason, I fully support the Bill and its aim of protecting the term “apprenticeship” from misuse, so that it will be treated in the same way as a traditional university degree. I am sure there can be nothing more frustrating for students than to learn that an opportunity labelled as an apprenticeship is not quite the real thing, when they have tried hard to be accepted on the programme and then put in so many hours. This is a move that I hope will be welcomed across the House—one that will ensure that apprenticeships are here to stay. I hope this means that they are now respected as much as a degree is—they rightly deserve to be.
There is some debate in my constituency on the issue of Sunday trading, but I fully support the measures that would let this be decided at local level. I support, too, the debate that would have to take place before my council could make any decision.
In a recent Centre for Cities report, Northampton was named the second-best place in the country, after London, for business start-ups. This is obviously great news and an amazing achievement by small businesses in Northampton. In the same period for 2013 and 2014, Northampton had the highest average increase in the number of businesses, at 9.9%, while it also had the UK’s second-highest rate of employment, at 78.6%.
I am pleased to have lobbied the Government for Northampton to receive an enterprise zone, which has played a vital role in the regeneration of the town, providing good-quality jobs and attracting high-calibre companies to Northampton. There are huge opportunities for businesses to grow there and to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit for which Northampton is rapidly becoming known. I know that this Bill will help the town’s businesses to continue to develop, and I know that its measures will be welcomed in my constituency and across the country.
5.26 pm
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD): I share the view of other right hon. and hon. Members that this is a hotchpotch of a Bill that rather loses the focus on what it claims to be about in its title. In the limited time available, I shall rattle through a few key issues and spend a little time on the section that deals with pubs.
Let us remember that the Green Investment Bank has been a huge success. This bank, which was a direct result of Liberal Democrat policy, has invested £2.3 billion into the UK green economy, which then attracted a further £7 billion of private sector money. This means that it is already profitable. Considering that it was set up only in 2013 with a statutory purpose, the fact that it is being privatised now with such indecent haste really exposes the ideological decision making behind this rather than what the Green Investment Bank was set up to do. I pay tribute to my colleague in the other place, Lord Teverson, and congratulate him and other colleagues on inserting their clever initiative on special shares being looked after by green guardians. I ask Ministers to think about what message is being sent out by this Government’s record on hitting our climate change targets.
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Small businesses are the driving force of our economy. There are 5.4 million private sector businesses and 99.3% of them are classified as small. However, there are not enough measures in the Bill, which is an opportunity wasted. I welcome the creation of the small business commissioner. It is vital for small businesses to have a champion with a statutory footing, but the reality is, unfortunately, that this commissioner has no teeth. Any recommendations for resolving complaints will not be legally binding. We believe that the commission should have real sanctions, particularly over late payments, where repeat complaints against the same larger companies should result in state-level sanctions or penalties.
There are a number of measures to widen the responsibilities of regulators and to ensure that decisions do not impact negatively on small businesses. Clearly, that is welcome, but the measures will have little real impact. Has any assessment been made of whether this will lead to a significant boost for small businesses, which is what we want to see? We also want to see greater use of the growth duty.
Apprenticeships, of course, were yet another Liberal Democrat flagship policy during the coalition Government. Conservative Members keep talking about “the Government” over the last five and a half years, but that is simply not honest. It was the Liberal Democrats who pushed the apprenticeship agenda, and it was the former Business Secretary Vince Cable who oversaw that policy and the creation of 2.4 million apprenticeships. We warmly welcome the decision to make it an offence to describe a programme as an apprenticeship scheme when it is not officially classified as one.
Late payment is clearly a huge issue for small businesses. In 2014 alone, £46.1 billion was owed in late payments, and that simply cannot continue. We need stronger measures to deal with it.
I agree with what has been said about public sector exit payments, but I should like to hear from the Minister why, given that local government workers, teachers, health workers, police officers and fire and rescue workers are included in the cap provisions, public financial institutions have been excluded. Fred Goodwin, former chief executive officer of the Royal Bank of Scotland, reportedly receives an annual pension of £342,500. The public will surely demand that banks that have been bailed out should be the first to be subjected to the cap.
In the limited time that remains to me, I want to say something about pubs. I declare an interest as chair of the British Pub Confederation. The confederation gives a new voice to pubs and publicans and enables them to stand up to the British Beer and Pub Association, which represents the interests of the pubcos. Its members include the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Business, the two leading small business organisations. We warmly welcomed today’s announcement of a U-turn on the disgraceful clause 8.12 of the draft pubs code, which will not now go ahead. It should never have been there in the first place, and where it came from we can only surmise, but I think that it must have originated from pubcos or their supporters.
What concerns us most now is the current proposal for the pubs code to allow a waiver for investments before someone signs up to a tenancy. That would clearly enable the pubcos to game the position.
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Toby Perkins: There is talk of substantial investment, but a substantial level of investment by a city-centre pub will be far greater than a substantial level of investment by a small pub on a street corner. Is it clear what the Government mean by substantial investment?
Greg Mulholland: It is not clear, and I do not believe that there is sufficient understanding of the reality of pub investment. I suggest that Ministers in the Department and other Members read an excellent article in The Publican’s Morning Advertiser by Robert Sayles, published on 6 January 2015, which exposes part of the myth that has been created by pubcos and their supporters. For instance, in 2015 Enterprise Inns invested £66 million—which sounds a lot, but only amounts to £13,200 per pub across the estate—and, interestingly, made a loss of £66 million at the same time, which it can offset against tax. Who is really investing in its pubs?
BIS has said that it will look at ways of preventing the pubcos from gaming the position. However, I want to deal with another myth. The last Conservative Government were right to introduce the Beer Orders in order to bring about competition. The fact that they gave way to industry lobbying and provided a loophole to allow the creation of the stand-alone pub companies was the problem, not the Beer Orders themselves. The Government must not do the same thing again. We must have a market rent only option that is triggered in the way that was intended in the legislation, and there must be no opportunities for the pubcos to game that, including abuses of the investment waiver. I look forward to continuing to work with the Minister and her team to deliver that.
5.33 pm
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con): I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak, and to speak after fellow members of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. I shall focus on clauses 20 and 21 in part 4, both of which relate to apprenticeships.
Addressing the skills gap is a key component in improving our productivity, and it is an issue that is regularly raised by businesses in my constituency. The Government's target of 3 million apprenticeships in England by 2020 is a key policy, demonstrating their commitment to addressing that gap. It is right for our young people, our workforce, our businesses and the economy. While university is the right choice for some young people, apprenticeships will suit others better, and it is time we recognised that.
If we are to achieve the overall 3 million target, all employers in both the public and the private sector must play their part. While there are examples where public sector organisations are already employing apprentices, such as in my local fire service in Cannock Chase, the measures set out in clause 20 will set targets on the public sector to ensure that they all fulfil their duty.
For too long there has been inequality between degrees and apprenticeships. This is why I welcome the measures set out in clause 21 to protect the term “apprenticeship” and ensure only those courses that meet the statutory requirements can be described as an apprenticeship. The term “degree” is protected in legislation so it is absolutely right that the term “apprenticeship” is put on an equal footing and protected too.
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To achieve our 3 million target we must engage young people, parents, schools and employers. To reach this figure, we must increase awareness and understanding of apprenticeships, and also, critically, ensure that they are valued. The measures in clause 21 will strengthen and protect the apprenticeship brand and provide the foundations for increasing awareness and understanding, and enhance their value.
I was particularly pleased to hear the Secretary of State for Education’s announcement last week that will require schools to give access to apprenticeship providers and colleges to create a level playing field in terms of academic and vocational career options. To date, there has been an imbalance, and little incentive for schools to direct young people towards apprenticeships. In my experience, the best advocates are more often than not the apprentices themselves.
I ask the Minister, however, what other measures are being taken to promote apprenticeships. Exports are another Government priority and they are being promoted through the “Exporting is GREAT” campaign. May I suggest that we enter into a similar high-profile campaign to promote apprenticeships? I ask the Minister to update the House on whether such plans are being considered.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con): My hon. Friend mentioned schools, and does she agree that it might be helpful for Ofsted, when it inspects schools, to ascertain how many pupils have been put on to apprenticeship schemes as part of how it measures a school’s success or failure? That could be a driver to encourage schools to engage more proactively with the apprenticeship scheme.
Amanda Milling: I agree that we need to do more, and there is a role for Ofsted in that, by promoting apprenticeships in schools.
I would like to draw the House’s attention to a number of facts which I believe go to show the value of an apprenticeship. Some 96% of businesses which have taken on an apprentice believe their company has benefited, and 86% of those who did an apprenticeship stayed in work afterwards, 67% with the same employer. We should contrast that with data that show that 47% of recent graduates who were in employment in 2014 were in “non-graduate roles.” A report published by the Sutton Trust in October 2015 suggested that the earning potential of the best apprenticeships rivals that of degrees. For example, level 5 apprenticeships result in greater lifetime earnings than undergraduate degrees from non-Russell Group universities.
I realise that in reality the majority of apprenticeships are currently level 2, but I am concerned that some of the commentary regarding level 2 can be quite negative, which, in my view, is rather dangerous. Level 2 apprenticeships give young people the opportunity to develop their skills and are a gateway to advancing on to higher levels. If we are not careful, we may create a two-tier apprenticeship system, replicating the very problem we have faced and are trying to address in terms of the inequality of qualifications. I therefore ask the Minister what measures we are taking to encourage level 2 apprentices to go on to level 3 and beyond.
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To conclude, I welcome clauses 20 and 21 and believe they will provide the foundations to build awareness and understanding of apprenticeships and also to build their perceived value.
5.39 pm
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I would like first to express my concern over the redundancy payments. Other Members have already done so, and I know that the Minister has taken note of their comments. I have been contacted by constituents who are civil servants, and they are greatly concerned that the commitment they were given on the capping of mobile exit payments has now, as they see it, been reneged on. Some of the employees that this will target earn less than £30,000 a year.
I welcome the Government’s commitment on apprentices. It is excellent to see that, but the Bill reminds me of the curate’s egg, in that it is good in parts. Unfortunately, not all its parts are good and some of its proposals are quite unpalatable. However, we are pleased with the Government’s commitment on apprentices. I also want to see more young ladies and girls getting involved in the science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM—industries, and particularly in engineering, which has some fantastic opportunities in Northern Ireland. We want to encourage that participation as well.
I commend the Minister for the strong stance that she took in the debate in Westminster Hall last week on late payments by big stores to small businesses and their suppliers. She will know that a lot of those payments are delayed, and that there have also been delays in the invoicing of receipts. The groceries ombudsman took the decision to penalise Tesco stores in particular, although it was unfortunate that they were unable to enforce a fine because of the timescale involved. However, the Minister clearly stated that she was pleased to see that decision, and we as MPs are also pleased by it. I commend her for her strong stance on that issue.
It will come as no surprise to hon. Members that I am about to raise the matter of the impact of the Government’s changes to the rules on Sunday shop opening. I want to talk about the effect that the changes could have on the staff who work in those shops. The Minister will know my stance on this issue. Pressure to make the changes will be placed on shops, mostly smaller ones, across the whole of the United Kingdom. I understand that this measure is England and Wales-oriented, but there will be an impact on the way in which the regional devolved Assemblies view the matter. There will be pressure from the big stores to ensure that the changes in Sunday opening also happen in those regions where this is a devolved matter.
The claim that the changes will help small businesses is simply not correct. Many people feel that extending the hours will simply mean an influx of shoppers to the big chain stores, with the small shops suffering as a result. Earlier in the debate, the Secretary of State mentioned the pluses for small businesses, but I am not convinced by his argument. Indeed, many Members here today and many people outside this Chamber are unconvinced. Let us look at the evidence. I remember asking a question about this when the hours were relaxed during the London 2012 Olympics, and I was told that the smaller shops had felt little difference.
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In fact, many of them lost money. Let us look at the facts. They had to pay staff to work extra hours but they did not generate enough extra business.
In an earlier intervention on the Minister, I mentioned that polling conducted by Populus in September 2015 had found that more than two thirds of the general public supported leaving the existing Sunday trading hours alone. In other words, don’t change them! There is no need to change them, and people do not want them to be changed. They want them to stay as they are. The same poll revealed that 91% of shop workers were against extending Sunday trading hours. Allowing large shops to open for longer hours will lead to a displacement of trade from the smaller stores.
Victoria Borwick (Kensington) (Con): Is the hon. Gentleman aware that staff in many garden centres across the country are already working longer hours because they go in to feed the animals? So for some shops, more flexibility around opening on Sundays would be beneficial. I have been asked to make this representation on behalf of garden centres.
Jim Shannon: I am sure the hon. Lady knows we may have a different opinion on this matter, but I understand her point and accept that. She has put her point clearly to the Minister and I appreciate the intervention.
It has been stated that convenience stores lost some £26 million in trade during the Olympics, when Sunday trading rules were abandoned for eight weeks, although many Members in the House asked questions at that time to ensure that things would not go the wrong way. Only large traders would benefit from this move and no matter how the Government put it, the change to allow local authorities to do their own thing will lead to unfair competition, angst among some of the workers and a mishmash of Sunday trading laws. The Government have indicated that this will be introduced on Report, but let me make a final quick point on devolution to councils. Let us imagine that Manchester’s council changes the Sunday opening hours but Liverpool’s does not, that Burnley’s does but Blackburn’s decides not to, that Bournemouth’s changes but Portsmouth’s says, “No, we are not going to do it” and that Darlington changes but Newcastle does not—how ludicrous is that? What a mishmash, dog’s dinner of Sunday opening hours there would be across the United Kingdom. There would be no consistency—it would just be everyone for themselves.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is for businesses to decide whether they open on Sunday, so it is perfectly possible to have that mismatch already when business owners make that decision for themselves?
Jim Shannon: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention, but we disagree on the matter—he probably knew that before he got to his feet.
Let me just say this: don’t ignore 66% of the general public and 91% of the workers who say they do not want change. Whether you like or not, those are the facts and they have to be considered. On behalf of those with strong religious beliefs who want to keep Sunday special, those who have concerns about their family time being shattered and altered forever, and shop workers, whose opinions are being ignored, let me
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say gently to the Government that many Conservative Members are not happy with these changes either. It is not for me to say, because Ministers know their Members better than I do, but I am aware of a certain number who could be the difference between this legislation going through or not. I respectfully suggest to the Government that when we look at this on Report they should consider the hon. Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who are not in their places, and many other Conservative Members who have concerns. I believe that if the Government pursue this legislative change on shop opening hours, there is every possibility of them being defeated. They should consider this legislation carefully before they go forward with it. Let us keep Sunday special. They should not ignore the general public and they should not ignore their workers.
5.47 pm
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con): I am grateful to be called to speak at this time, Mr Speaker. This is a good Bill, because any Bill dealing with enterprise should be removing shackles and this one does so, to a large extent. I therefore welcome it, but some aspects need to be discussed in more detail, one of which is the small business commissioner. I welcome that role, because some small businesses in my constituency complain frequently about payment problems and this allows me to reassure them and, in particular, the Federation of Small Businesses, that meaningful action has been taken. The Bill says that the commissioner will be giving out advice, and that is a good thing. I am not sure about the scope of this “advice”, but it has to include encouraging small businesses to grow and advice on how that growth might take place. This should be within the context of an interesting speech made by Andy Haldane, the chief economist at the Bank of England, who has noted that we need to ensure that firms think about long-term planning and strategic investment, rather than just exit routes, dividend payments and so forth. The Government should be thinking about how this commissioner might start moving firms in that direction.
Let me pick up a point made by my fellow Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who compared this commissioner’s role with that of the Small Business Administration in America. That is a worthy comparison to make and we should be thinking about it. We need more long-term planning and more strategic investment, potentially encouraged by some form of advice through the small business commissioner, in line with the Bank of England’s thinking.
The second question we should be considering is that of apprenticeships. It is absolutely right that an apprenticeship should be saluted and should be a cast-iron position. We must ensure that all 3 million apprenticeships that we hope to have in the course of this Parliament have a quality hallmark beneath their name and are successful. That is imperative. As for the institute that will be created, which should be up and running in April 2017, we should ensure that it has the capacity to ensure that the apprenticeships are of cast-iron quality. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that that is the case. Although it will be an arm’s length institution, it should not lose sight of other organisations in the world of education. We must ensure that we think not
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simply about universities and apprenticeships but about everything else that forms part of the process. It is all interlinked. I must put in a shout for the further education colleges, because they have an important role and we must ensure that that continues.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con) rose—
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab) rose—
Neil Carmichael: No, I cannot give way, as I am already pressed for time. I apologise.
We need to emphasise the importance of technical and professional apprenticeships. That is what we should be calling them. Everyone has a vocation—I have a vocation, a shopkeeper has a vocation—but the question is what we are doing about technical and professional apprenticeships. Some reassurance on that front from the Government would be helpful and encouraging.
Let me make one last point about the UK Green Investment Bank. In the last Parliament, the Environmental Audit Committee did some work welcoming the GIB but said that it needed to be able to raise capital. If the Bill moves the bank in the direction in which the Government want it to go, that will happen. An added advantage is that it will not be hampered by EU state aid rules, and that will be a great benefit for the future. We must ensure that it sticks to being green, being investment-oriented and being a bank. I am making a serious point, as those three things could all be at risk. We do not want to end up with the GIB as some kind of fund or something else that is not in its original job description. In short, the bank should be a driver for more green investment. We need to see some coverage for the changes to energy, for example, that have led some firms to think that the subsidy has been reduced a bit too quickly. I do not agree, but we need to demonstrate some commitment to investment in technology in how the GIB will deliver.
On the subject of the small business commissioner, I absolutely welcome the focus on late payments, but we must think of a way of making our small businesses feel easy about wanting to grow and to feel successful in that growth process. Ultimately, that will deliver more exports, higher pay and more job opportunities. As for apprenticeships, it is important to ensure that they stand up to scrutiny and have value. The institute will have a role to play in that process. In short, this Bill is a further step in rebalancing the economy towards enterprise, technical development, production, output and exports.
5.53 pm
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP): As other SNP Members have said, the Bill is a typical Government effort. It claims to be ambitious, but does not do enough. It has too much of a scattergun approach and includes too many subjects, although it does allow the Tories to squeeze in old favourites, including privatisation and attacks on public sector workers.
Let me start with the Green Investment Bank—another supposed Better Together demonstration of the merits of Scotland’s staying in the UK, given the decision to site the bank in Edinburgh. Here we are a few years down the line, and it looks like that might go the way of the onshore renewables subsidies, which were also originally
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provided on the UK Government’s so-called broad shoulders. It beggars belief that a publicly owned green initiative should be deemed suitable for sell-off and privatisation. We therefore need to know what the Government’s commitments are to environmentally beneficial projects and specifically to Edinburgh.
On public sector payments, I have been contacted by constituents who want me to oppose part 8. Those hard-working public sector workers see it as yet another attack on their terms and conditions. We have heard about fat cats, but I can almost bet that the so-called civil servant fat cats will be the ones who get the waivers and their big lump sums. Meanwhile, lower-paid public sector workers with long service will get no waivers, and their lump sums will be limited.
We have heard a lot recently about the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign and women who took early retirement and who are now struggling to get back into the workplace and struggling financially. That demonstrates that we should not limit people’s choices. Some women have just discovered that they need to work six years longer. They will be looking at the options, and at whether they can take early retirement and leave the workplace. The caps in the Bill could affect their choices.
Chris Stephens: My hon. Friend is emphasising the discrimination that could come from the exit payments. Does he agree with me and with trade unions such as Unison and the Public and Commercial Services Union that, before these changes are implemented, an equality impact assessment should be carried out?
Alan Brown: I fully agree with my hon. Friend. The Lords asked for an impact assessment to be undertaken, but that has not happened, so I hope the Minister will take note of that.
To finish on the public sector payment cap, what we need is good governance, not Whitehall-imposed caps. We heard earlier that this is all about devolving power to local government, and this issue is an example of where we could follow that through, rather than allowing Westminster to hit care workers, teachers, nurses and emergency workers.
Let me turn to an issue that other Members have raised: prompt payments and their effect on small businesses. Once again, I would suggest that the UK Government could take a lead from the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government have commissioned a review on public sector procurement in the construction industry, where cash flow can be a major issue.
I am a civil engineer, so I am well aware of the problems late payments can cause, particularly when companies have to make large outlays on materials as part of a job specification. I have actually been a client and a consultant, so I have been at both ends—I have received begging phone calls from companies that are desperate for money, and I have had to go cap in hand to chase up money that a company needed for its cash flow.
That is why I welcome the Scottish Government’s current project bank account trial for public sector procurement projects. Project bank accounts are ring-fenced and underpinned by legal trust status. They allow subcontractors to receive their money at the same time
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as contractors, rather than having to wait for it to be channelled through the main contractor, which leads to delays and allows the main contractor to withhold moneys to have leverage over the subcontractor.
Another omission from the Bill, which was raised in the Lords, is cash retentions in the construction industry. For too long, that has been the elephant in the room. The Government have not wanted to talk about it, and that seems to have been the case again today. From my experience in the construction industry, I understand the need for a mechanism to deal with snagging at the end of a project or during the maintenance period. I know how difficult it can be to get a contractor back on site once they have moved on to the next job. Equally, however, no contractor should have to wait years to get their retention money back, because that hits cash flows. The 5% retention money is also often the contractor’s profit margin on the job, which shows how important that money is to contractors. With up to £3 billion held in retentions at any one time, and with £40 million lost in 2015 alone due to insolvencies, we can see how important cash retentions are in the construction industry.
The cash-flow problems that can be caused manifest themselves in different ways, such as an inability for companies to bid for other projects because the risk is too high, or borrowing from banks being impeded. Banks do not recognise retentions as a future income because of the uncertainty that goes with the release of retention moneys. That completely impedes companies’ ability to invest in training and apprenticeships. That is counter-intuitive considering that, while one section of the Bill is about encouraging apprenticeships, it does not tackle the issue of cash retentions that stops companies taking on apprenticeships. It seems incredible that the Government recognise cash-flow issues in general, yet avoid dealing with retentions being paid years late.
We can also imagine the administration time that is wasted in chasing these retention moneys up. I mentioned main contractors using payments as leverage over subcontractors, and it is absolutely the same for retention moneys. Specialist engineering contractors have correctly observed that a scheme could be implemented without impeding the Government’s ongoing review. That review is completely reactive in terms of amendments tabled to the Bill in the Lords, and not proactive. Again, that is indicative of the UK Government’s approach.
The suggested model is a retention deposit scheme based on the tenancy deposit scheme. That seems logical, and it would easily align itself with the trial currently being operated by the Scottish Government. A constituent has said to me that he has given up on this issue being addressed in his lifetime. We can deal with it in this Bill.
6.1 pm
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). I listened with interest to his points about cash retentions, particularly in relation to the construction industry. We have been looking at the issue in the all-party parliamentary group on the built environment, particularly the fact that such cash retentions do not apply to residential construction and whether that should be considered.
I rise to speak in support of the Bill because the most important thing that we can be doing at this time is talking about enterprise and how we further it. Let us
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all remember, however, that the best people to run British business are businessmen and businesswomen, and that while many of us in this House may well have run businesses ourselves in the past—I was a director of an advertising agency—that is not our role here today. That role, whether as Ministers such my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise or as parliamentarians, is to make sure that we have the right environment for business to thrive.
The Bill has the credentials to suggest that the Government are doing exactly the right things to make sure that British business is thriving. They have cut corporation tax to 20%, and it is now the lowest in the G20. We have the fastest growing economy in the G7. We are building the sorts of trade links that unfortunately were neglected for too many years before this Government came to power. It is important that we acknowledge this up front, because our role is to make sure that we create the environments for businesses to succeed and that we have a Government who understand how best to do that. Our Government do have a good track record on that, and perhaps that is why we are best placed in Europe in terms of starting businesses or growing new businesses.
I urge the Minister to assure me in her closing remarks that the Government are continuing to work collaboratively not only with local authorities but with our local enterprise partnerships, because through such collaborative work my constituency is now enjoying some of the lowest levels of unemployment we have ever seen. We have secured, with the tenacity of our local enterprise partnership, designation for Basing View as an enterprise zone, with the opportunity to create thousands more new jobs through the sorts of targeted interventions that the Bill sets out. We are working with award-winning organisations such as SETsquared, which is a business accelerator helping, I hope, hundreds of new businesses to come to Basingstoke and—thinking about the comments of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright)—helping more businesses successfully to access finance.
There are two other aspects of the Bill that I want to talk about. The first is the importance of the Bill in supporting an even better environment for businesses to access the right people and the right practices to succeed. I applaud the measure in the Bill to further strengthen apprenticeships, and the commitment by the Government to support more than 3 million new apprenticeships. In my constituency in the past five years we have seen 4,000 people start apprenticeships. That is important because it will help to solve some of the productivity issues that we know we still have to resolve in Britain.
If this ambitious scale of apprenticeships is to be achieved, we need to ensure that the funding of apprenticeships works in the way that Ministers want it to do. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State for Education say that she will do more to make sure that schools make children aware of the benefits of apprenticeships. I would like to hear more from the Minister about how we can ensure that, for organisations such as Basingstoke College of Technology in my constituency, which is seeing a 9% annual increase in the number of apprenticeships secured, the funding is available to support this dynamic growth in apprenticeships. There are at present more businesses wanting to place
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apprentices than there are apprentices coming forward. We need a flexible way of ensuring the availability of funding to meet that increased demand and need.
The second aspect is the provision for establishing a small business commissioner—an interesting way of trying to overcome the problems that many hon. Members have talked about in relation to late payments. In Hampshire we have on average £109,000-worth of outstanding payments to small businesses—a figure supplied by the Federation of Small Businesses. Further measures in that area are to be welcomed. I urge the Minister to consider how we can ensure flexibility within these measures to adapt the role of the small business commissioner if we find that new and different ways could be used to support businesses struggling as a result of late payments.
There are many provisions in the Bill. It contains a further set of measures that will help support business, and I hope it secures the full support of the House tonight.
6.7 pm
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con): As the grandson of a shop keeper and as someone who ran a small haulier business, it will come as no surprise that I support the Bill. As the Secretary of State said earlier, although Napoleon used the phrase “a nation of shopkeepers” as an insult, the British public took the phrase under their wing and treated it with great affection. Small independent businesses have been the lifeblood of our country for centuries and we must do all we can to keep enterprise alive and well. It is enterprise that enables our country to grow, our small island to bat well above its weight on the international stage, and our young people to aspire to a brighter future.
In my constituency of Bath, independent small businesses keep our city alive. Without them, thousands would struggle to find employment and it would be a much less dynamic place to live. Given my own background in helping to start up a small business and having first-hand knowledge of the challenges that start-ups face on a daily basis, I was delighted to see that this Government are driving through an Enterprise Bill. We should be doing everything we can to ensure that enterprise is the driving force at the heart of our economy. That is why I am pleased to see the introduction of a small business commissioner and all the powers that come with it. Changes to late payment of insurance claims, the sale of Government shares in the Green Investment Bank, and grants or loans towards electronic communications facilities are welcome. All these changes will help Britain to continue to be the best place in Europe to do business. It is disappointing to see how few Labour MPs there are on the Opposition Benches. That shows that the Conservative party is the party of true enterprise.
As I have worked alongside the NHS and other public sector bodies for over seven years in my career before entering the House, I will concentrate in the short time available on last year’s announcement that the Government intended to end six-figure exit payments for public sector workers. Constituents will no doubt be shocked to hear that between 2011-12 and 2013-14 the cost of exit payments in the public sector was around £6.5 billion. More than £1 billion of that came as a result of exit payments costing more than £100,000. Indeed, according to the response to a freedom of
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information request by the TaxPayers Alliance, Haringey Council in London spent £12.6 million on pay-offs in three years.
Six-figure exit payments that are far in excess of those available to most public sector workers and others in the wider economy are not fair and do not offer value for money for the taxpayers who fund them. I therefore welcome clause 35(1), which introduces a cap of £95,000 on the total value of exit payments. The scope, level and design of the cap has been out to consultation, and I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about the specific technicalities. I hope she will also update the House on the consultation regarding the calculation of compensation terms and employer-funded early retirement in circumstances of redundancy.
During the seven years that I worked alongside the public sector, I saw numerous examples of permanent employees being shifted to a new role and getting a double pay-off. That is why I am pleased that the Government are ensuring that exit payments do not exceed £95,000. However, although I am pleased that the Bill will cap public sector exit pay-offs at £95,000, is the Minister considering whether to prevent public sector workers who receive a pay-off from being able to set up a limited company, apply for an interim role within the same department, receive a large daily rate and thereby effectively circumnavigate the reduced exit payment scheme? If we are to keep a lid on public sector exit payments, I strongly suggest that that is considered in Committee.
At the general election, this Government promised to create 3 million new apprenticeships. The fact that 2.3 million were created in the previous Parliament is a fantastic achievement in itself. I pay tribute to the amazing work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on- Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is no longer in his place, in championing apprenticeships. When discussing apprenticeships, we often forget the superb benefits that they give to people’s lives. Not only have they provided new skills; they have turned around the lives of many and given new opportunities to millions of young people in the UK.
Mrs Drummond: Does my hon. Friend agree that older people and people with disabilities should also be allowed to take up apprenticeships?
Ben Howlett: I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes her point well. Apprenticeships should be available to older people as well as younger people. I hope the Minister will address that in her summation.
Apprenticeships have delivered that deeply Conservative belief of aspiration—something that an entire generation lost when I was at school from 1997, just as Tony Blair took the leadership of the Labour party, to 2003.
Young people who once thought that they would be second-class citizens if they did not go to university now have a new nationally recognised and praised status. Apprentices are building Britain and driving our country forwards while others have stayed static. To those millions of people who have delivered that growth for us, we must say thank you—in particular, I thank those in my
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constituency and Bath College for the work they have done—and we ought to do everything we can to deliver even more.
In order to do that, we must ensure that all sectors of our economy deliver. The private sector has taken the lead in creating apprenticeships. It has seen that they are hugely beneficial not only to ending skills shortages, but to productivity growth and future profitability. The same must be applied to the public sector if we are to hit our target of 3 million by 2020. I therefore welcome the amendment to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.
As the Government look to increase the number of people who are able to access an apprenticeship, it would be very valuable if the Minister would consider the small number of older people taking on an apprenticeship, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond). There is no statutory reason why older people cannot take on an apprenticeship, but there seems to be a stigma that prevents them from taking up such an opportunity. I hope the Minister will consider that issue in her summation.
In summary, this nation of shopkeepers has continued to grow while other nations have remained static or contracted. The British entrepreneurial spirit and tenacity for business and enterprise have created jobs and opportunity. The more we champion the sector, encourage more people to upskill, and create more opportunities for businesses to grow, the stronger Britain will become. I look forward to supporting the Bill later.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): Order. Sadly, we are running out of time. This is such a popular Bill, so I have to reduce the time limit to five minutes.
6.14 pm
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con): I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Having founded two small businesses, I support the Bill because it tackles some of the biggest issues faced by business today and cements the UK’s position as one of the best places in Europe to start and grow a business. This Enterprise Bill not only strengthens our enterprise nation but builds our opportunity society—a society where anyone can work hard and get on, whether in a high street shop such as the one my family ran, or in a start-up at the heart of our digital revolution.
The Bill’s plans for a new small business commissioner, support for apprenticeships and deregulation complement the good actions the Government have taken during this Parliament to support small businesses, whether by cutting corporation tax, cutting red tape or supporting pro-business initiatives such as Small Business Saturday. Such actions have made the UK one of the best places in the world to do business.
I welcome the Bill’s proposals for a small business commissioner. Receiving payment for work done or services supplied is fundamental to any business, especially a small business. Late payments hit cash flow, affect working capital and limit growth, jeopardising the future of our small businesses. The FSB last year estimated that 59% of small businesses were negatively affected by late payments. That is why I welcome clauses 1 to 13, which will create a new small business commissioner.
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The role of the commissioner will be to consider complaints made by small businesses against suppliers and to signpost small businesses to appropriate resolution services, such as sector ombudsmen. That should result in positive outcomes. The commissioner will help small businesses to settle disputes quickly and cheaply, raise awareness among small businesses of alternative dispute resolution and encourage a long-term culture change whereby businesses treat each other with respect and fairness.
Getting slow-paying businesses off the backs of SMEs is vital, but so, too, is paring back the regulatory pressures that they face. That is why, last year, the Government’s new business impact target focused Whitehall’s mind on the economic impacts on businesses of new regulations that come into force during the Parliament. It is absolutely right that the Enterprise Bill extends that target and that duty to include the action of national regulators. Businesses consistently tell me that the actions of regulators are as important as the content of legislation when determining their experience of regulation. It is absolutely right that we get the regulator off the back of businesses and on their side—not just sitting back and regulating, but stepping up and supporting the economic growth that drives our country’s prosperity.
Apprenticeships play a key role in helping people in every community represented in this House to build a more secure and prosperous future. The lifetime benefits associated with the acquisition of an apprenticeship at level 2 and level 3 are significant, and higher apprenticeships help our young people to achieve a higher level of income. It is good news that since May 2010, there have been more than 2.6 million new apprenticeship starts across England. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Ben Howlett), I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is no longer in his place, for the great work that he has done on apprenticeships.
Members from all parts of the House who organise job and apprenticeship fairs know that the most enthusiastic supporters are often private sector employers. In my constituency, Innova Design, Fasset, Greggs the baker and Barratt Homes have jumped at the chance to help our young people on to a new path of success. The Bill will ensure that the public sector also plays its rightful role in apprenticeships. I welcome the fact that the Bill will impose a new target on public sector bodies to increase their recruitment of apprentices, to ensure that such bodies play their role at the heart of the Government’s policy. That is not only strategically right, but economically right. Research from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills suggests that apprenticeships have a high level of return on investment. The research indicated, for example, that adult apprenticeships at level 2 deliver £26 of economic benefit for each £1 of Government investment. Apprenticeships are incredibly good value for money.
In conclusion, the Bill reinforces the UK’s place at the heart of the global economy as a great place to start, run and grow a business, and as a country that invests in its young people. The Bill helps every business, in every part of the country, to play an important role in our economy and to benefit from the success that the Government’s long-term economic plan is delivering.
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6.18 pm
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Mak) in this debate. Before I entered this place, I spent most of my career working in the private sector, and I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have worked with and for small businesses, including our family manufacturing business, which we started thanks to the enterprise allowance scheme.
It is estimated that there are 5.4 million small businesses in the UK, and that they account for 48% of UK private sector employment. In my constituency, small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of our local economy. Newer companies such as SHS, which manufactures stainless steel handles, work alongside longer-established and often larger firms such as Whitehouse Cox and Phoenix, echoing the industrial heritage of the west midlands.
I want education, skills and business to drive our economy and a culture of encouragement that nurtures and develops aspiration, builds confidence and supports enterprise. From my own experience and from speaking to local businesses, I know we need a business framework that supports, not hinders, and that works to reduce red tape and Government bureaucracy. That is why I welcome the measures in the Bill.
One of the biggest challenges facing any business is cash flow. It has been reported that 59% of UK small and medium-sized businesses have been impacted negatively by late payments, and that the average small business is waiting for £31,000 of overdue payments, which is a lot of money. That can cause huge challenges to a business, as well as being a distraction, when all it wants to do is to get on with doing business. The introduction of a small business commissioner is therefore a very welcome move. It will boost the resilience of small businesses by helping with unfair late payments and poor contractual processes. I look forward to our being able fully to assess the contribution and effectiveness of the commissioner in due course. Perhaps the Minister will say how that will happen.
Red tape is another challenge: it can stifle and swamp a business through the volume and the complexity of it all. The previous coalition Government’s agenda delivered £10 billion of deregulatory savings during the last Parliament, and it makes absolute sense to continue to do that and to drive for greater deregulation by placing more bodies in the scope of deregulation.
There is much in the Bill to talk about and I do not have time to talk about it all, but I want to mention apprenticeships. Last week, I was able to host a meeting of local businesses, with my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). Sadly, he is not in his place at the moment. Since 2010, over 4,000 apprenticeships have been created in my constituency, which is allowing people to earn and learn, and to develop skills for the future of the workforce, our local businesses and the greater west midlands economy.
One of the messages I hear loud and clear is the need to focus on quantity and quality, so I welcome clause 21, which will protect the term “apprenticeship” in the same way that the term “degree” is protected in legislation. That will benefit apprentices, employers and training providers, and is a clear demonstration of the importance,
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value and reputation of apprenticeships. Quality and reputation will equally be integral to that, and that should be embraced as a positive step. Apprenticeships should be a key part of developing key skills for today and for tomorrow, so that we can fill more jobs involving more skills locally and so that we can encourage local enterprise.
I am mindful of the clock ticking, so I will conclude by saying that there is much in the Bill to celebrate. It puts enterprise at the heart of this Government. I believe it demonstrates that this Government are backing business and that Britain is truly back in business.