Net Zero Strategy: High Court Ruling

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The court did not say that the net zero strategy was unlawful; I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier remarks. The Climate Change Committee praised this Government for the moves we have made on electricity decarbonisation. As I say, we are a world leader in this space, and I think she should show a little bit more pride in the efforts that the country is making, including off the coast in the North sea near her constituency, and also in our efforts on electric vehicles. There is a great deal for us all to take pride in across the whole country in terms of our net zero strategy and decarbonisation.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

This week, Conservative Members have given both a full vote of confidence and an enthusiastic standing ovation to a Prime Minister who deliberately missed an emergency Cobra meeting to plan for the heatwave emergency because he was away playing at “Top Gun” with the RAF—playing the part of Maverick, I understand. How can anyone take seriously the climate change credentials of a party that so wholeheartedly supports a Prime Minister who, like some latter-day Nero, chooses to fiddle with his joystick while London burns?

[Greg Hands]

Well, I do not know quite where to start. I am not sure whether there was really a question embedded there. [Interruption.] Now that I have the hon. Gentleman’s attention, let me say that it is about time that SNP Members started to talk to the Scottish Government, with whom, I have reason to believe, they may have some influence, about why they have an ideological opposition to new nuclear. Nuclear is absolutely the way to provide the baseload zero-carbon energy for the future. Why is his party, and the Scottish Government, fundamentally opposed to it? His time would be spent more usefully on engagement with them than on watching what the Prime Minister was up to at the weekend.

Post Office: Compensation for Horizon Scandal

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Receiving this praise is great for me, but this is not about me. As he rightly says—please do carry on, by the way—it is about the people who have suffered terribly at the hands of people in authority. Some of them have taken their own lives and many of them have been stigmatised and left in debt and abject poverty, so we have to keep the pace going, not just to get that compensation for them but to get those lessons learned and hold people to account.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Among the other catastrophic and inexcusable failures, this House failed. This House was made to fail in its duty to get to the bottom of this quicker, because somewhere in the machinery of government there was a deliberate and sustained conspiracy to send Minister after Minister unwittingly to the Dispatch Box to say things that we now know are not true. This House has to look at that very seriously indeed. It cannot be acceptable in any circumstances for this House to be prevented from doing its job by conspirators, whether in Government or in outside agencies, and I hope the appropriate authorities of the House will look into that urgently.

Can the Minister tell me what further action he proposes to take in forthcoming legislation to widen the circumstances in which directors of companies can be held personally liable as well as corporately liable for serious misconduct in office? In particular, one of the things my constituents find frustrating is that directors of these companies, who at the very least should have known what was going on and did nothing to stop it, were able to walk away and become directors of other companies. They have had 20 years of a good lifestyle that was denied to the victims and, if they are called to account, they will get a fair trial, which was denied to the victims. Will the Minister look for ways to speed up the process of preventing directors from taking up other highly paid directorships if there are serious questions to be answered about their conduct in office?

[Paul Scully]

I am not sure if it is the House authorities, but it is certainly the case that Wyn Williams’s inquiry will see exactly where the failings were—including, if there are any, failings by Ministers or others who have stood here—without fear or favour. In terms of directors, we have already brought in a number of measures since I have been a Minister, including the disqualified directors legislation, which allows the Insolvency Service to bring companies back on the books and then to take action against their directors, but we will always look to make sure we have the most robust system to tackle rogue directors.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Member is hugely committed to finding ways through the challenges around Northern Ireland, and I congratulate him on the work that he does. I will certainly pass back his comments, and I am happy to discuss them with him separately, if that is helpful.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Following on from the cricket analogy, one of the golden rules in that great game is that when your time is up, you walk; you do not wait until you are told.

The Minister is talking about the benefits to businesses of leaving the EU. When will businesses in my constituency start to feel those benefits? All they are seeing now is businesses closing because they cannot get the staff, because of interruption to their supply chain, or because their exports are getting held up on their way across the channel. When will things turn around after the disaster of Brexit, so that we are at least back to where we were before 2016?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am always very pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman’s contributions, given that he was born in my constituency—I am always pleased to see constituents doing extremely well in life. On my role, he is absolutely right that I am responsible for energy—I was Energy Minister and am now the Secretary of State—and that is why we have brought through the net zero strategy, which has plenty on energy from waste, including in relation to our energy needs.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The recently published preliminary report by the administrators of the failed Safe Hands funeral plans company suggest that this is yet another instance in which company directors have made false promises to innocent people, taken their money, played fast and loose with it and are likely to have lost it all. Will the Minister give us a timetable for the various bits of legislation in the Queen’s Speech so that dodgy company directors can be held to account immediately and not 10 or 15 years later?

[Paul Scully]

On corporate governance, we will see, in the economic crime Bill, the reviews relating to Companies House, and we have also had the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021. However, the hon. Gentleman cites a particularly egregious example and I will make sure that my colleague Lord Callanan, the Minister responsible for corporate governance, responds accordingly.

Sub-Postmasters: Compensation

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

First, I do not want to pre-empt anything that we may do, but when I talk about a short consultation, this is about 555 people who have a well organised group together and their lawyers. We have already started, so this is not something where we are writing out to people and waiting for answers to come back; this is a focused bit of work. What I can say is that we will start the process that is agreed with the JFSA as soon as possible—and as soon, Mr Speaker, as I have updated the House first.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister will be aware of the plight of my constituent Myra, who jointly ran a post office with her mum. They begged and borrowed £70,000 from friends and families to fill a shortfall that they could not understand, but which we now know—and the Post Office probably knew at the time—was not a shortfall at all. They lost their jobs, lost their home and were branded thieves and liars. Myra’s mum did not live to see her name cleared. Myra was not allowed to claim under the historical shortfall scheme. Does the Minister agree that no matter how carefully the criteria for any compensation scheme are drawn, there will always be people who do not fit those criteria? Will he ensure that there is a catch-all clause in the compensation scheme so that nobody but nobody is left without the compensation for which they have waited far too long?

[Paul Scully]

Please send my condolences to Myra and the family. Within any scheme there will always be hard edges, but please let me know if particular people are falling through the gaps and let me see what further we can do to support them through this difficult time.

Economic Crime: Planned Government Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we want to get this right. It is a technical and complex issue, and we will continue to work with people who are experts and knowledgeable in this field to make sure that we can get that legislation totally in place so that we can push it through in good time.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister will be aware, and certainly his Treasury colleagues are aware, of the activities of Patrick McCreesh and Philip Nunn, of Blackmore Bond notoriety. Nearly five years after their dodgy and probably illegal sales tactics were first brought to the attention of regulators, those two are still allowed to continue in operation at the helm of a veritable spider’s web of companies, collecting scores of yellow cards, and some red cards, for breaches of statutory obligations. They are subject to no personal sanction, other than the occasional closure of one of the companies that they wanted to close down anyway. How much longer are we supposed to be satisfied with a regulator that, in one case, accepted the registration of a 10-year-old as a company officer? When are we going to have a regulator with teeth to drag dodgy directors out from hiding behind company nameplates in order for them to be held personally responsible, in a way that correctly reflects the fortunes that they have made and the financial misery they have inflicted on their victims?

[Paul Scully]

I know the hon. Gentleman has used that example on a number of occasions. It is a particularly pertinent example but, as I say, Companies House reform is foremost among our priorities and it will come as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Bulb Energy: Administration

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend will be happy to realise that that is exactly what we are doing through the 10-point plan, with commitments to offshore wind, solar power, nuclear power and other technologies. It is a huge imperative for us—and for me as Secretary of State—to ensure that we have a diversity of supply.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Bulb was the seventh largest energy supplier in the United Kingdom. How much bigger does a supplier have to be before it is too big to be allowed to fail? What are the Secretary of State and his Cabinet colleagues going to do to ensure that the cost of this market failure is not borne by ordinary families, who are already struggling to pay their fuel bills this winter?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about Bulb. It was a very large company, which is precisely why the supplier of last resort was not felt to be an appropriate mechanism in this instance. [Interruption.] Hon. Members chunter from a sedentary position. The solution is the special administrative regime, which I outlined—I hope, clearly—in my initial statement.

Draft National Security and Investment Act 2021 (Monetary Penalties) (Turnover of a Business) Regulations 2021 Draft National Security and Investment Act 2021 (Notifiable Acquisition) (Specification of Qualifying Entities) Regulations 2021

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 General Committees

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.

I, too, will support the draft regulations, but I have a couple of points for the Minister to pick up on in his summing up. First, on the turnover of a business regulations, he said earlier that they had been drafted to prevent a business from moving its turnover out of the reach of United Kingdom legislation. Is he completely satisfied that the regulations are tight enough to prevent turnover from simply being moved around in a circle between different companies, whether officially in the same group or under the same ownership?

We see that kind of thing happening all the time when a business is about to become insolvent: all the turnover and assets get moved into a business that will continue, and all the debts and liabilities get dumped on the company that is about to go into liquidation. If companies are able to find ways of doing that in order to avoid paying the debts of the liquidated company, they can also find ways of doing it to minimise the financial impact of failing to comply with the regulations. I would appreciate an assurance from the Minister that the loophole that exists in relation to businesses about to put themselves into liquidation will not also be there for businesses that want to understate their turnover to avoid the size of the penalty that they should incur.

My second question is about the Specification of Qualifying Entities Regulations. I am looking in particular at the schedule dealing with data infrastructure, and I do not think that anyone would query any of the designated public sector authorities that are included, but some appear to be missing. It may simply be that I have misheard, or it may be that some of them are included within a wider umbrella designation elsewhere in the list, but, for example, the National Audit Office is there but, as far as I can see, Audit Scotland is not. Audit Scotland does not audit UK Government functions, but it does carry out a lot of public audit work in Scotland; I do not know what the exact arrangements are for Wales and Northern Ireland.

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of local authorities and health authorities are not included. It might not be immediately obvious that the data infrastructure for a health authority could be critical to national security, but if we think first of all about what happens to national wellbeing if that goes badly wrong, and secondly about the data that health authorities hold on every citizen on these islands, it becomes quite clear that we need to protect health authorities from malign foreign influence. On local authorities, we should remember that in most parts of the UK, local authorities are responsible for critical transport infrastructure. Apart from motorways, most of the transport infrastructure is controlled and managed by local authorities, and considering the potential harm to wellbeing—not quite to national security, but certainly to national wellbeing—if something goes badly wrong with the data infrastructure of a social services authority or an education authority, the implications could be quite significant.

Could the Minister perhaps outline what the thinking is, not so much about the authorities being included at this stage, but about the examples that I gave just now—the kinds of public authorities that do not appear to be included? Do the Government intend to keep that list under review? If it becomes obvious that there is an issue with data infrastructure supplies to local authorities, for example, how quick and easy will it be to close that loophole before it can be exploited?

[Paul Scully]

I thank hon. Members from both sides of the room for their valuable contributions. First, let me have another go at responding to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire: turnover does not include stock and assets, but it does include any income that derives from their use. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central raised with my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), now Education Secretary, when he was covering this subject in Committee, the question of where the fines go. As she knows, the fines are going to the Consolidated Fund, but none the less, she makes her case powerfully.

In terms of what changes have been made to the definitions since the consultation, the scope of a number of descriptions—communications, critical suppliers to Government, data infrastructure, energy, suppliers to the emergency services, and synthetic biology—was narrowed following the publication of the consultation response, and a few descriptions were amended. For example, in the area of communications, qualifying entities carrying on activities in the UK that related to public communications supply chains were removed from the definition, substantially narrowing the activity of the qualifying entities captured. For critical suppliers to Government, two of the five limbs of the definition set out in the Government response to the consultation were removed, again to narrow the scope of the definition. Those two limbs were the provision of services to facilitate the security of network and information systems, and the guarding of premises to insure against unauthorised access or occupation and against outbreaks of disorder or damage.

In the area of data infrastructure, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Glenrothes, the Government response to the consultation provided a definition of a public sector authority using the meaning of “contracting authority” in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The final regulations revised the definition of a public sector authority to a much narrower list of authorities, set out in a table within the regulations. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point: I would say that first of all, the purpose of that table is to make sure that the notifications to the Secretary of State are proportionate and balanced. None the less, we will review this SI within three years, rather than the normal five years, to ensure that we lean into this and get it right, to give certainty to businesses and to ensure that we capture the whole gamut of the areas that he raised.

In terms of energy, changes were made to clarify the infrastructure activities carried on in the UK and captured within this description. Suppliers to the emergency services, as the hon. Lady mentioned, and several meanings in the definition, published in the Government response to the consultation, have since been amended and narrowed to provide an objective list of activities, captured for the purposes that require self-identification. The applicability of each activity to each type of emergency service listed has been narrowed to ensure that the activities of qualifying entities, captured by mandatory notification, are as targeted and proportionate as possible.

Finally, on synthetic biology, new paragraph 6 was added to the definition to create exceptions relating to human or veterinary medicines, or immunomodulatory approaches, which is not easy to say.

The hon. Lady also asked who was consulted on this and what was said. We are proactively and extensively engaging across all the relevant sectors. For example, our policy colleagues at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have attended meetings with techUK members, the AI Council, an aerospace, defence, security and space group webinar, and an electricity industry forum. We conducted targeted and extensive engagement with organisations most likely to be affected by the NSI Act, including companies that invest in or acquire entities in the 17 mandatory areas of the economy, and those providing legal or financial advice in UK acquisitions.

We have met and spoken to more than 200 cross-economy organisations through workshops, teaching and presentations, including the Law Society, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, techUK, international investors and UK universities. Tailored communications have been sent out to more than 100 industry bodies in those mandatory areas of the economy, including 70 major law and financial services firms, 36 international investors and 550,000 businesses via Companies House.

Additional care has been taken to ensure that we can reach small and medium-sized enterprises, because the hon. Lady is absolutely right that they need to have the capacity to be ready and will be affected by the regulations. We have used associations, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry, so together there is a network of 580,000 businesses. We will continue to ensure that we work with SMEs in particular, to give them guidance ahead of time, because we need to keep on engaging directly with businesses around this Act, ahead of the full commencement.

The first tranche of detailed guidance has already been published to assist businesses, investors and advisers in understanding the Act and how to comply with its requirements. We have established a BEIS expert panel, which includes business representative organisations, higher education bodies, investment associations, law societies and others, that has provided detailed feedback on the draft guidance, ensuring that the guidance is fit for purpose, rather than rushing it.

Our second tranche of guidance will be published ahead of regime commencement, to continue to aid the interaction of parties with the new investment security unit and to ensure compliance, including how to submit a notification form and guidance around notifiable acquisitions. A communications campaign will focus on delivering teaching and guidance to that cross-section of businesses in the UK and internationally.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes asked about turnover and whether we were confident about getting this right; absolutely, we are. If the Secretary of State and a business disagree on the business’s turnover, the Secretary of State can overrule the business. Clearly, the Secretary of State has to act reasonably under public law duty, so it does not give him a free pass, but it is a fallback option if there is a disagreement on business turnover for the reasons mentioned.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that answer. When assessing a business’s turnover, can the Minister confirm whether sufficient attention will be paid to previous years? If a business has a big turnover for several years and it suddenly drops, looking at a single year will not necessarily flag that up. However, if that is noticed, it may well raise suspicions that turnover is being artificially depressed. Will that kind of examination be standard practice whenever a business’s turnover is being examined?

[Paul Scully]

As is set out in the statutory instrument, annual turnover is calculated by taking the turnover for the available period and scaling it up to a full year—if there is not even information for one year. None the less, the Secretary of State will have to take a view, albeit under his public law duties, to ensure that turnover is a realistic. There must be an effective deterrent against a breach of the rules, which is why in some cases the Secretary of State may even deal with a subsidiary business with a small turnover that is funded and controlled by a large, wealthy parent business. Indeed, the subsidiary may have been established specifically to carry out the acquisition in question and may not even have a turnover, full stop, at the point when the Secretary of State is calculating a penalty. That is why there is scope for the Secretary of State to overrule and take the wider view that he is asking for.

I hope that I have covered most of the areas that were raised and provided sufficient clarifications and assurances to hon. Members on today’s statutory instruments. Both SIs are essential for the effective operation and running of the NSI Act and the provision of a safeguard for the UK, and I commend them to the Committee.

Supporting Small Business

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I commend the Labour Front-Bench team for bringing it to the House and the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), for her well-informed and often thought-provoking speech. As a lot of Back Benchers wish to contribute to the debate and much of the substance of the motion concerns devolved matters, I shall not detain the House for too long.

It is important that we recognise the fundamental part played by small businesses in our economy—the economy of the United Kingdom and all its constituent nations. I am reminded that many years ago my good friend Alasdair Morgan, who served with distinction in this place and in the national Parliament of Scotland, addressed a meeting about economic regeneration and pointed out that there were twice as many small businesses in his constituency as there were unemployed people. This was in the days when the unemployment figures were not fiddled, so the numbers were a lot higher than they are just now. Alasdair pointed out that if every small business could be helped to take on less than half a full-time employee, we could abolish unemployment. Instead of helping small businesses to increase their workforce, though, we are far too often faced with a Government who take steps that seem deliberately designed to make it harder for small businesses to take on additional employees.

Small businesses face structural problems that bigger businesses do not. Although we hear a lot of rhetoric from the Government about supporting small businesses, a lot of the specific difficulties that they face seem to get ignored. I confess that I never appreciated one such difficulty until several businesses in my constituency contacted me independently of each other. What they all had in common was that they had been taken to the cleaners by dodgy suppliers, because the suppliers knew that even a small business that is not much bigger than a single-person operation is regarded as a business and so has no consumer protection. Tech companies and telephone supplies companies—which tended to be the worst, by the way—understood that they could fleece small businesses and get away with it, whereas if they tried the same tactics with individuals, the consumer protection laws, although not ideal, would protect those individuals from being too badly damaged. A couple of long-established small businesses in my constituency were brought very close to closure purely for that reason. The Government might want to look into that.

Business-to-business enterprise and business-to-business commerce tends to operate on the basis that it is between two equal partners, but when a two-person or three-person operation deals with a multinational corporation with a turnover of billions, that is not an equal contest or an equal deal. Perhaps, in the same way as we need to protect individual citizens from being taken advantage of by bigger suppliers or businesses, we need to do more to give smaller businesses some kind of consumer protection.

Smaller businesses are much worse affected when there is a recruitment crisis, as there is just now. The Government blame covid, but everybody knows that Brexit is as much to blame as covid. If a company has a workforce of 100 and loses two or three people, it still has 97% of its operation; if a company has a workforce of three and loses a person, that can make the entire business unsustainable and unviable. The clear message that we get from small businesses and organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses is that the labour shortages we see in key sectors of the economy just now have not yet been adequately addressed. I am not convinced that the Government have even adequately recognised them.

It is all very well to say, “Isn’t it great to have all these vacancies?” but if the people who are looking for work do not have the skills that are needed for those vacancies, or if there are reasons why they cannot take on the work in those jobs, it is quite possible to have very high vacancy levels. Businesses are struggling because they cannot fill those vacancies, and, at the same time, a lot of people are struggling because they cannot get a job that fits with their commitments or responsibilities outside the workplace.

Much of the debate so far has focused on the retail sector, partly because the traditional picture of the high street is one where there is a lot of retail activity, most of it generated by small independent retailers. That is a great thing to have in a town, but how many of us could walk down any high street in our constituency today and see more than half of the existing businesses independently owned and run, never mind locally owned and run?

There has been a huge shift in ownership in the retail sector, as there has been elsewhere. The sad thing is that, when times get tough, a big business, which has no soul in the community, is likely to clear out, whereas the smaller business, locally grown and locally based, is much more likely to dig in and to hang on in there for as long as it possibly can. That is why we will often find that, when things get difficult in the retail sector, the small locally owned shops will try to stay open for as long as they can, whereas the big chains will sacrifice 100, 200 or even 300 properties and the jobs that go with them at the stroke of a pen without a thought to the devastation that they are leaving behind.

I have a particular situation in Glenrothes. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only town in the United Kingdom where the high street is shut at night. A stroke of genius by the then Conservative Government in the 1990s when the development corporation was being wound up was that they sold what the Americans would call a shopping mall to private owners, and it has been struggling ever since. We do not have a night-time economy because the high street is shut. People cannot get in. If they are in and the doors are locked, they cannot get back out.

In spite of that, there are still some remarkable success stories in the Kingdom shopping centre in Glenrothes. I was delighted to pay a visit to Jessop Jewellers to congratulate the owner on their 50th anniversary in the one premises in the town. I can highly recommend their products as well by the way, although I may have made a mistake by telling the owner that I am now only a few years away from my ruby wedding, so I think she may be going to contact Mrs Grant about that in the not too distant future.

A lot of the focus today has been on non-domestic rates. Clearly, because that is devolved, the specific way in which the rates system operates in England does not apply in Scotland. For a number of years, the Scottish Government have had the most generous and most supportive non-domestic rates scheme anywhere in the United Kingdom. We had small business support, whereby small businesses did not pay any rates at all for years, before it was introduced in other parts of the United Kingdom. We still have greater support for our small businesses than any other part of the United Kingdom.

My message to the Government, and indeed to the Opposition should they be in a position to move into government in the near future, is to continue to support small businesses in England, whether through supporting the domestic rates scheme or something else. That then generates additional funding through Barnett consequentials for the devolved Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and allows those Parliaments to support our small businesses at the same time.

We could quite easily have filled this Chamber with a debate that would have run for four or five days if we had invited every Member of Parliament to come in and describe the exact situation for businesses in their constituency. I know that there have been a number of contributions along those lines from Labour Back Benchers already today, but the simple fact is that the party that used to be the party of small business is not recognised as that any more, certainly not by small businesses themselves. I suspect that, in their heart of hearts, it is not recognised as a party of small business by its own members and its own voters. It has lost sight of the part that small businesses have played in creating the economy that we have just now. It has lost sight of the fact that, without small businesses, we cannot have a successful and sustainable economy. [Laughter.] I can hear the laughter from the Conservative Back Benchers—that sums up their attitude. It is the attitude that a lot of small businesses feel they have received from this Government over the past two or three years—[Interruption.]

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) has just said, it was not laughter; it was astonishment. I have been in business for 30 years. Not every businessperson I meet votes Conservative, but the vast majority do, and I have not heard anybody say what the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) has just said—that the Conservative party is no longer the party of small business. Not only that, but there is huge support for what this Government have done over the last 18 months in supporting those businesses through the worst crisis to hit business in the last 100 years.

[Peter Grant]

If the hon. Member does not understand what the Federation of Small Businesses thinks about his Government tearing up their manifesto promise and increasing the burden of national insurance, if he does not understand what small businesses are saying about the impact that Brexit has had on them, if he does not understand that the energy crisis that the United Kingdom still faces, with massively increasing energy costs that then increase costs for every single business on these islands, and if Conservative Members do not understand that all those things are purely the result of their party’s policies, each and every one of which is devastating for the wellbeing of small business, then we have to wonder why on earth they are still in Government.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Perhaps we could mention one example of this Government helping small business: the requirement for outsourcing agencies, such as National Highways and Network Rail, to put a third of all their contracts into the hands of small businesses. Indeed, Network Rail is up to that third already. Is that not a tangible example of this Government doing something to support small businesses?

[Peter Grant]

Well, it was not quite the way that things were done with all the personal protective equipment contracts and other covid contracts. Of course, there is a better way to do it than that. Rather than telling the health service that a fraction of all its privatised contracts have to go to small businesses, why not say to the health service, “Don’t privatise it. Do it yourself.”? The public would get a better, cheaper and more efficient service, which is exactly what we are seeing with the NHS in Scotland since the SNP banned the privatisation of our services all together.

If the Conservatives want to see an example of how to support small businesses, they do not need to look beyond these islands. They need to look beyond this Chamber, beyond this city and beyond this country to some of the other countries that are supposed to be equal partners in this Union. If they do, they will see examples of Governments—I commend also some of the Welsh Government initiatives mentioned earlier—who do not just talk the talk on supporting small business, but who walk the walk as well. That might be something to do with the fact that those Governments are not run by parties whose coffers are swollen to obscene degrees by people who have made their money running big businesses—very often, big businesses that ran small businesses into the ground.

The linkage between the impact of non-domestic rates and other taxes and Government policies on small businesses is clearly complex, so it is not possible to say that simply changing the non-domestic rates scheme on its own will fix the problem. I, for one, do not like the idea of using an imaginary property valuation as a significant feature in deciding somebody’s tax bill, whether it is an individual’s council tax or a business’s non-domestic rates burden. The tax base is far too narrow on far too many businesses. We are taxing things that might have been the right things to tax 500 years ago, but which are not the right things to tax now.

Most importantly, as was mentioned by the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), we have to move to a situation where the tax is due and is paid where the profits are made. We cannot have companies that make substantial profits on the hard work, diligence and expertise of people in the United Kingdom, but where all the profits are magicked away to some offshore tax haven so that no tax is ever paid. The Government have it in their hands to change that. They need to move a lot quicker to do that. Doing so would not only help to plug the gap in the public finances, but would give small businesses a chance to compete on fair and equal terms with the bigger competitors. I can say, for a lot of the small businesses in my constituency, let them compete on equal terms with the big boys; they will take them on and, as often as not, they will beat them, and they will make sure that profits from that success are reinvested in their local communities.

As with so many other things that we debate in this Chamber, I have indicated the successes that the Government of Scotland have had with the powers they have. Others have referred to some of the successful initiatives that the Government of Wales have introduced with the limited powers that they have. With increased powers for those devolved Parliaments will come increased success and increased wellbeing for the citizens of those nations. The only way that small businesses in Scotland will have a long-term, secure and profitable future is when the decisions that affect them are taken by a Government who are accountable to the people of Scotland and to no one else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I am extremely glad that the shadow Chancellor moved the motion before the House, because the support of our small businesses has to be one of the principal priorities of the Government at this time. I know that enormous challenges are crowding in from every side as we continue to tackle the covid crisis while dealing with fuel price rises, supply chain shortages, NHS backlogs and the work to decarbonise our economy, but a thriving economy built on private enterprise will do more to help us to solve all those problems than anything else, so it is imperative that the Chancellor does all he can to support and promote small businesses over the next few months.

Given its well-publicised proximity to Heathrow airport, my constituency plays host to many companies in the travel sector. I am particularly concerned about the future of the sector. Despite announcements in recent weeks, there are still considerable restrictions on people’s ability to travel that continue to limit the opportunities for trading in the sector, not least with continued uncertainty about the sector’s prospects as covid cases continue to soar.

The travel sector underpins so many other aspects of the UK economy, both in attracting visitors to our cultural and hospitality sectors and in enabling us to seek out new markets elsewhere, so it must be a strategic priority for the Government to provide it with support. Travel industries will not thrive after the end of the pandemic if they do not receive assistance now.

I call on the Government to extend furlough to all the sectors that are still trying to operate under restrictions, but particularly to the travel sector. They also need to redesign the furlough scheme to enable companies to use it to part-pay their employees. When I spoke to travel companies at a surgery in my constituency recently, they highlighted that at the moment they have enough trade to pay their previously full-time employees to come in for two or three days a week to man the phones, take bookings and research options. They would love to have furlough to be able to pay them for the remainder of their time, just to keep going while there are still so many restrictions and so much uncertainty. Furlough was conceived as an all-or-nothing system, but it really needs to change in order to continue to support businesses that are still affected as we come out of the pandemic.

The retail and hospitality sectors were badly hit by the pandemic. Many are now struggling to reopen fully, thanks to supply chain and labour market issues. The Government need to look again at their immigration policies and think about how they can be better designed to support our key high street industries as we emerge from the pandemic. More than that, they need to complete their promised review of business rates and think again about how they are levied on town centre businesses.

There has been a lot of discussion this afternoon about what might take the place of business rates—I think that there was some freelancing from some hon. Gentlemen on the Tory Back Benches about what might replace them. They are no longer in their place, which is a shame; I was very interested to hear about their suggestions to increase VAT, although I think I am right in saying that the Conservatives committed in their 2019 manifesto to not doing so.

[Peter Grant]

I fear that I may have anticipated the hon. Lady’s next line, but how much faith can we place in a Conservative manifesto promise not to increase tax these days?

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Gentleman has indeed anticipated exactly what I was about to say, which is that, given that in their 2019 manifesto the Conservatives committed themselves to not raising VAT, we can surely expect it to be raised at some point before the end of this Parliament. Nevertheless, if the Government are not sure how to proceed on business rates, I can give the hon. Gentleman a fully fleshed-out policy from the Liberal Democrats. We believe that a commercial landowner levy would be a much fairer way of raising local revenue, by taxing landowners rather than business owners. We urge the Government to consider that option.

Small businesses provide about three fifths of the employment in the private sector, and it is vital that those jobs are supported. The Government’s recent announcement of a rise in national insurance payments will deter small businesses from creating the new jobs that are so badly needed and limit the expansion of companies seeking to offer new products and services, including those that offer the innovation we need for the green economy. The Government should limit the impact of this rise on the small business sector by quadrupling the employment allowance from £4,000 to £16,000. That would enable a small business to employ five full-time workers on the median UK salary without paying any national insurance contributions, and would incentivise and support new businesses as we make the transition towards a net zero carbon economy.

The UK faces a troubling few months. Covid is not over yet, and a return to normal patterns of life seems likely to be substantially delayed. However, problems create opportunities, and we need to help our entrepreneurs to find solutions and bring them to the people who need them. Small businesses support communities, provide employment and deliver a good society, and the Government need to support them for everyone’s benefit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Travel has an impact beyond the sector itself and the impact of reopening our cities. We will continue to work with the sector to offer it support and to flex our support. My hon. Friend mentioned weddings. On 21 June, the restrictions on weddings were eased, which I was pleased to see. The number is now determined by how many a venue can safely accommodate with social distancing measures in place. I am looking forward to the day when those final social distancing measures can melt away.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

This morning the Government tweeted to tell us that about 1.7 million businesses had been allowed to borrow money under the various coronavirus loan schemes. Do they also intend to send out a tweet to tell us how many jobs have been lost and how many businesses have been destroyed by the decision to exclude 3 million business owners from any coronavirus support whatever?

[Paul Scully]

I have continued to converse, whether in person or on social media, with some of the people leading the campaign in this area. As I have said before, a lot of the schemes we put in place have been reverse engineered so we can deliver them quickly, at pace and at scale. We have not been able to save every business and every job, but clearly, we will look to not only reopen and recover, so that we can bounce back better and protect as many jobs as we can, but create new jobs as well.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (First sitting)

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

[The Chair]

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[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

[Peter Grant]

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

[Peter Grant]

[The Chair]

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra]

[Peter Grant]

[Peter Grant]

[Paul Scully]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

[Peter Grant]

[Peter Grant]

[Peter Grant]

[Peter Grant]

[The Chair]