Afghanistan

Debate between John Baron and Michael Fallon

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who of course served in the armed forces. He makes a good point about keeping those who lost loved ones in the campaign and those who suffered injuries up to date with the progress on the memorial, and I certainly undertake to do that.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Most of us agreed at the time with the initial deployment to rid the country of al-Qaeda, but what we tend to forget in this House is that that mission was accomplished within a couple of years. The mistake we made was then to allow the mission to morph into the much bigger one of nation building, something we did not properly resource. Given that—to use the Defence Secretary’s own words—the Taliban “remain a potent force”, may I draw him out a little and ask him what he thinks the key lessons are from this intervention?

[Michael Fallon]

I think I drew attention to the military lessons we can learn: these campaigns are best fought by local armies that have the support of the local population and have that inclusive support across tribal and political divides; these campaigns are waged best in conjunction with international partnerships, so that we learn and can operate each other’s equipment; and military action has to be supplemented with effective economic and political support alongside it. I certainly acknowledge that there is a great deal more to do in all three of those respects.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Baron and Michael Fallon

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to help small and micro-businesses grow.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

I announced last week that we will extend the exemption from burdensome new regulation to firms with up to 50 staff, and that will continue after 2014. Our growth accelerator scheme has supported more than 6,000 small businesses with high growth potential. We are encouraging more businesses to exploit export opportunities, and UK Trade & Investment is on track to double the number of SMEs it supports to 50,000 by 2015.

[Mr Baron]

Although I welcome the Government’s initiatives to date, given the importance of small and micro-businesses to the economy will Ministers use their influence to push for further tax incentives to encourage growth and employment? After all, cash flow is king for such businesses and history suggests undeniably that financial payback does not take too long to come around.

[Michael Fallon]

As my hon. Friend knows, the Government are making the tax system in the United Kingdom the most competitive in the G20. In 2011, we reduced the small companies rate to 20%. More than 1 million employers will benefit from the new £2,000 employment allowance from next April and nearly 500,000 employers will pay no employer’s national insurance contributions at all from that date.