Micro-Businesses

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I look forward to serving under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I am delighted to see the Minister in his place. As you rightly say, micro-business is absolutely at the heart of what I have been doing in my time here in the House. Perhaps I should start by saying that there is no division or debate about the importance of micro-businesses. I am absolutely clear that the EU and the UK recognise their importance and the role that these very small businesses play in growth and community stability. The challenge for us today is this: what can we do to ensure that Government policy is best shaped to help that growth? I will consider that in relation to four different areas.

First, we need to consider how we might clarify what we mean by a micro-business. Secondly, we need to examine regulation. We need to consider what the Government could do to reduce the burden of regulation and to reduce not just the amount of taxation—that is a difficult issue—but the bureaucracy that goes with it. Thirdly, I should like to consider how we might help micro-businesses to get access to finance and to consider alternative sources. Finally, I should like to consider the culture change that we need to make to help this country to grow micro-businesses and to help young people to see them as a career route to which they might want to aspire.

In the UK, we do not have a definition of a micro-business. The EU has definitions; they are not compulsory but voluntary ones. It defines small and medium-sized enterprises, micro-enterprises and micro-entities. Perhaps when the Minister is considering any changes at EU level, he will suggest that the last two names are too similar. Let me explain the difference between a micro-enterprise and a micro-entity. A micro-enterprise is a business with fewer than 10 employees and a turnover of less than €2 million. By contrast, a micro-entity still has a cut-off of 10 employees, but the turnover cut-off is €700,000. There is an additional option test of assets worth up to €350,000. Those are ceilings to the definition, and the criteria—whether we consider the number of employees, turnover or assets—are optional, so it is a very flexible definition.

As a matter of practice, the UK Government and particularly the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have accepted the ceiling in most cases, but it is interesting to note that the Department for Work and Pensions has recognised that there is a significant difference between those businesses with fewer than five employees and those with more than five employees. It has recognised that a business with fewer than five employees does not have the same managerial support and expertise. Therefore, the burden of regulation is that much greater. In secondary legislation under the workplace pensions reform, the DWP said that micro-businesses should mean businesses with fewer than five employees. That is particularly relevant now, because the EU is considering reviewing the definitions again, while it reviews the Small Business Act.

The Minister will know that I have argued for some time that the definition of fewer than 10 employees encompasses too large a group of businesses to enable the Government to focus their policy, not that I would choose a smaller definition to exclude businesses from relief. On the contrary, unless the definition is realistic and properly applies to a recognisable group, there will be fewer exemptions from which small businesses will benefit.

My real concern, however, is that when the European Union looks again at the definition, it may choose to remove the flexibility and instead have a fixed definition, with a fixed number of employees and turnover. That will significantly reduce the UK’s ability when it wishes to use those definitions, as indeed it may be required to under EU legislation. So I think that it is for the Minister and the Government to decide now what they think the right definition is, not only so that they can lobby the Small Business Act review group, but for their own purposes, so that should they want to use a small definition for a tax scheme or in relation to pensions, they still have the flexibility to do so.

Both the EU and the UK are committed to reducing the burden of regulation on these very smallest of businesses. Indeed, for new legislation, the EU has a lovely mantra: “Think Small First”. That is spot on. Going forward, it has concluded that any new legislation should, de facto, exclude micro-entities—that is the smallest size that it has come up with—unless there is a good reason for including them. That sounds like a good starting point. It also says that for the next size up—micro-enterprises—any new legislation should have a light-touch approach.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has done extraordinarily well to obtain this debate. Micro-businesses are such an important part of our economic growth going forward. Does she agree that as more than 90% of very small businesses are UK-only, it is astonishing that the EU is telling them what to do at all?

[Anne Marie Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Such businesses need the freedom and flexibility to do what entrepreneurs do extremely well. Her intervention is absolutely en pointe.

Turning to the UK, I am pleased that the Government have introduced a three-year exemption on new regulation, and they are to be commended for that. The real challenge for the EU and the Government is what do we do about the pages and pages of existing regulation. The Government have introduced the red tape challenge, and I commend them for that. They have already looked at 12 sectors, and there are five more to come. I believe that they will report in three months or so, which will be valuable. Will the Minister adopt the EU mantra, “Think Small First” when he considers what can be got rid of? The EU has also gone through a simplification procedure on a number of occasions, but at the end of the day, we need to move faster and further.

The Minister has already looked at one area that needs further review from the perspective of micro-businesses: employment law. The British Chambers of Commerce has raised the issue with Ministers and in its various reports, but recruitment and dismissal procedures are onerous for very small businesses. No one wants to take away an employee’s rights, but the overall protocols and processes are complex. The second issue that small businesses have raised with me is health and safety. Lord Young has done some valuable work, and I look forward to it being implemented so that low-risk businesses can be excluded from much of the burdensome regulation and a more pragmatic approach is taken to those in higher-risk categories.

Still under the heading of regulation, I want to raise some issues about taxation. Paying less tax is clearly something that we would all be happy about, but it is the burden of the process that causes real pain for very small businesses. First up is fuel duty. I would, wouldn’t I?—I have been approached by a number of small businesses—plead with the Minister not to implement the fuel duty rise in August and to look again at a price stabilisation mechanism, because that would make the cost of petrol affordable and predictable for the smallest businesses. Both things are equally important.

Turning to national insurance, the Government have a good record on the rate and the holiday that they introduced for new businesses, so that they would have relief from employer national insurance for their first 10 employees. I suggest that we could allow mini-micro businesses—we have so many definitions on the table at the moment, but those with fewer than five employees—who take on up to four employees, so those with a total work force of four, not to pay employer’s national insurance for the first year, although employee contributions would stay in place. That would enable them to assist with the cost of the training and general upskilling of those new employees.

The group employing one to four employees represents 7% by turnover of the private sector, so it is not a small group for which I want to the Government to provide support. They are already considering the challenge of aligning PAYE with the national insurance regime, and I look forward to the results. May I encourage the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues in the Treasury to look at simplifying the classes, because there are so many that the average bookkeeper is totally confused?

I turn now to business rates. Again to the Government’s credit, they extended the small business rate relief and said that the scheme they were introducing would apply for a further year. I suggest to the Minister that that becomes a permanent feature, or lasts at least until the end of this Parliament. It is valued by small businesses, and that really would make a huge difference. However, business rates give rise to process issues, the first of which concerns valuation. Why do so many of the large business players, such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s, seem to be paying less than the smaller players? There is something wrong with the way in which the valuation criteria work, and they might sensibly be reviewed. I am often approached by small businesses that believe that they are suffering hardship and are frustrated by the appeals procedure. It is so bureaucratic and takes so long from start to finish that generally they are out of business by the time that they have finished the process, which simply cannot be what the Government intend.

My final point on business rates concerns empty properties. I accept that an incentive is needed to bring such properties back into use, but allowing six months, or three months for retail, to do so is not long enough, and the penalty for leaving them empty longer than that is disproportionate.

I turn now to VAT—a tax that is necessary and without which we would not be able to take this country back into the black. None the less, it has some wrinkles that the Minister and his Treasury colleagues might helpfully look at. We have on a number of occasions talked about the possibility of reducing rates for restoration and repair of houses, bringing the rate down to 5% rather than the full 20%. It seems to me that, given the pressure on the Government to increase the available housing stock, now is the time to look at that again.

Colleagues have considered a reduced rate of 5% for the accommodation charge for bed and breakfast and in hotels. Given that this is our Olympic year, why do we not set the rate at 5%, just for this one-off tax year, and let it be part of our marketing campaign to get people to visit the UK and enjoy the Olympics?

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is the VAT cliff: once a business is earning £73,000, it has to register for VAT, and if it provides services to individual customers who are not VAT registered, the increase in profitability that it has suddenly to achieve is significant. I suggest that we look at introducing a ratchet mechanism or a VAT rebate, which will ease the situation so that the full force of VAT does not affect the business in the first year.