Policy for Growth

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Thomas Docherty

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I was standing up, Mr Deputy Speaker. [Laughter.] Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this most important debate, which has been overdue for some months. We certainly need to up our agenda for growth.

Those who know me—and love me—will know that I am not a great interventionist. I believe that the most significant influence the Government can have over business and growth is through mood music. We need to do more to create the right mood and give confidence to the private sector, on which we will rely to provide the growth needed to repair the immense financial damage and the hole left behind by the Labour Government.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Bridgen]

With some trepidation, yes.

[Thomas Docherty]

I can see why so many people love the hon. Gentleman. Does he not accept that if the last Government had not stepped in to save the financial services and the banks, there would be no private sector for him to want a growth strategy for?

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. When the previous Prime Minister stepped in, the economy was at a precipice, and there is no doubt that we took a great step forward. [Laughter.] There you go.

We need all Departments to look at their role and at the mood music they create. As Arthur Laffer says:

“You can’t love jobs and hate the job creators.”

The question is what we do about that. We cannot love jobs and hate the people who create them. That must be at the forefront of the thinking and agendas at the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I believe that our Ministers do love the job creators, but it would do no one in the Chamber any harm if we wore our hearts on our sleeves a little more openly.

The Government’s role is to set the conditions for business growth. The state of the public finances reduces our scope somewhat, but, to pick up a point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), there is a method of cutting costs to business that will not reduce the Treasury’s take by a penny: reducing and minimising regulation. Over the first 10 years of the previous Labour Government, the increase in the regulatory burden saw the UK fall from fourth to 13th in world competitiveness rankings, a trend that has, unfortunately, continued.

As anyone who runs their own business will know—I am afraid that there are more business people on the Government side of the Chamber than on the Opposition side, and I ran a business for 22 years myself—business owners have spent ever-increasing amounts of time ensuring that their businesses comply with all the latest rules and regulations emanating from an ever-increasing number of Government agencies and quangos at home and in Europe. That is an unwelcome diversion from working and developing the business, and I welcome the measures being taken to reduce the number of quangos. We must, however, ensure that those quangos that remain do not unnecessarily hold back businesses, because time always costs money in the business world.

It was Adam Smith who said that vexation is the equivalent of taxation. I believe that regulation on business is vexation, so regulation is the equivalent of taxation. The business of business is business, and the business of government should be creating an economic and regulatory environment conducive to business growth and development.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I would, and I have asked questions about that of the Minister in this very Chamber. It is important to prevent rural isolation following the disastrous closing of the post office network in rural areas under the previous Government.

Only through a strong and vibrant private sector can our nation’s long-term prosperity be assured. With that in mind, it is vital that we undertake measures to deregulate as soon as possible. I urge the Government to consult a document that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham produced on this issue. His economic policy review in 2007 presented 33 specific areas where it was thought that the repeal of, and amendments to, regulations could cut costs and improve business efficiency.

I sit on the Regulatory Reform Committee, and I have severe concerns that it is simply not busy enough. I want the Committee to be one of the most active and busy in the House, which is why I support calls for the Government to bring forward a deregulation Bill as soon as possible and as a matter of urgency. Measures such as the scrapping of the home information packs produced no ill effects and got rid of regulations that did nothing but increase the burden of costs on consumers and business. We must continue that work.

We must also do more to tackle the gold-plating that we are so famous for in this country. EU regulations are signed up to by many countries, some of which do not have the will to implement them, some of which do not have the administrative ability to implement them and some of which, unfortunately, have neither the will nor the administrative ability to implement them. We have both, and we are very good at implementing regulations. That is unsustainable and it puts a tremendous burden on our businesses. We need to look around Europe to see how countries deal with their regulations in a lighter way. If possible, we should adopt those approaches to make the UK more competitive.

The answer to bad government and bad regulation is good government and good regulation. Regulations almost curtailed the growth of my business 15 years ago, when they caused a seven-year delay on a factory relocation. Fortunately, we managed to find a way through that.

[Thomas Docherty]

On the relocation of factories, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the localism plans of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will slow down planning applications and lead to more nimbyism? Will that not actually harm growth?

[Andrew Bridgen]

As so often, the hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. By incentivising local government by offering—potentially—10 years of business rates, the localism Bill will make local government considerably more business facing and business friendly than it was under the previous regime. Over-regulation is sending many businesses to the wall and dissuading many potential entrepreneurs from going into business.

We need an adult debate about taxation. Do we have taxation to provide the revenue for the essential public services that we need and deserve, or is taxation merely a tool for redistribution and a way to punish hard-working and entrepreneurial people, which is how I believe the previous Government often used it?