Policy for Growth

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

I join my hon. Friends the Members for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) and for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) in commending the very good points that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made. I never thought that I would hear in this House a member—indeed, a leader—of a party such as the hon. Lady’s commending the pharmaceutical industry, but I am sure that the sector will be very pleased to hear it.

It is easy to talk of growth in terms of numbers—another point on which I agree with the hon. Lady—but growth is about the production of goods and services and employing more people. It is easy for people who are in employment and wealthy to say, “It is not all about money,” but we should not fall into that trap, because for most people the difference between growth and no growth is represented not by quarterly figures, but by the companies that are expanding, hiring more people and creating more jobs or by the people in the economy who are deciding to start a business themselves. The fundamental point is that growth in this country will occur only when more people decide that what they want to do with their lives is set up a business and employ people.

Unfortunately, over the past couple of generations it has become very unfashionable—I cannot say “uncool” because my teenage son would criticise a middle-aged person like me for using such a word—for young, bright people to have an ambition in life to set up a business, partly because of the lure of the professions, such as accountancy, law and the media. I know that from visiting very good schools in Watford, where very intelligent young people are well educated by the state. When they are asked who is interested in setting up a business, very few put up their hands.

We have to try to recreate the conditions where people who set up businesses are heroes in life—where people who employ other people are regarded as doing something that is very worth while. Government alone cannot do that, although they can try by setting up schemes, providing training, and so on. There needs to be a feeling of why people are going into business—to create money and profit for themselves and their families, and for the community by paying taxes. Until we change and improve the philosophy, growth will be just something that one hears about at the top level.

The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who is unfortunately no longer here—she always speaks well and knowledgeably; I believe that she was at the Bank of England before she became a Member of Parliament—mentioned the recent visit to Watford by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I was there with him, and it is true that the 10 small business people to whom we spoke in a round-table discussion raised the point about bank funding that has been mentioned to the Minister time after time. However, far more of the discussion—unlike me, the hon. Lady was not at the meeting, so she was not in a position to mention this—was about those business people feeling that their businesses were being held up by bureaucracy, ridiculous employment laws now applying to temporary staff, and health and safety regulations. One small business man showed me a 20-page document that he had to fill out to offer work experience to people from local schools. That is completely absurd. The Government must get to grips with the situation. I am pleased to find that various things, including Lord Young’s report, are entirely commensurate with that.

Watford, as I am sure the Prime Minister would agree, is the hub of the universe. The Government—and the previous Government—have tried hard to encourage the film industry, which is very strong in Watford. Warner Bros has just announced an investment of £125 million in Leavesden studios. That will create many skilled, high-paid jobs that we need in the area. One of the reasons Warner Bros chose this country, and chose Watford and Leavesden, was the film tax credit that is given to people in the business. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) would say, with his experience and credibility, that that is a good example of how low taxation makes companies invest. That is very true. The film industry is picked out as a special case—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.