Budget Resolutions

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I will talk about the discussions I have had with business groups and business representatives, including those from the aviation sector. The Chancellor was very clear yesterday that this is a start. We will keep the situation under constant review and where support is required, we will look to see what we are able to provide.

Returning to the business interruption loan scheme, this is a temporary scheme that will help small businesses to access much needed finance. Yesterday, the Chancellor also announced £2.2 billion of support for about 700,000 businesses which are in receipt of small business rate relief or rural business rate relief. We want to ensure that every single eligible business gets their £3,000 at the earliest opportunity. We will work with local authorities to make sure that that happens. We will also refund businesses with fewer than 250 employees which pay qualifying statutory sick pay to people who are absent from work due to self-isolating for up to two weeks. We are providing vital tax relief, temporarily abolishing business rates for retailers whose premises have a rateable value of less than £51,000 and expanding the discount to include leisure and hospitality businesses. From creating jobs to supporting communities, small businesses are absolutely the backbone of our economy and this Government will always stand by them.

Yesterday, my Ministry colleagues and I heard from the Bank of England’s chief economist, who stressed the vital action that the Bank is taking to help banks to provide additional credit to businesses. Banks must absolutely be part of the solution and we are already seeing signs of that. Earlier this week, NatWest and Lloyds launched funds of £5 billion and £2 billion respectively for small and medium-sized enterprises directly affected by the impact of covid-19. NatWest also pledged to defer customers’ mortgage and loan repayments for three months. I want to see more lenders stepping forward and supporting our businesses through these challenging times.

As Business Secretary, I regularly speak to the business community, and in the light of covid-19, I have ramped up that engagement. Last night, I spoke with business groups and trade associations, including those from the aviation sector, to discuss the measures in the Budget and to reassure them of the Government’s commitment to support them. As I said, we will keep our response under review as the situation develops, but let me be very clear: this Government will always be on the side of business, entrepreneurs and innovators, because they pay the taxes that fund our brilliant public services.

Although I started my remarks by discussing our short-term measures to fight covid-19, it is worth reflecting what Conservatives in Government have achieved with the economy since 2010—I know that the shadow Chancellor will want to hear this. Employment is at a record high. The unemployment rate is at its lowest since the 1970s. A record number of women and a record number of people from ethnic minority backgrounds are in work. Over 1 million more people with health conditions and disabilities are in work now than five years ago, and youth unemployment has almost halved since 2010. Employment is higher in every nation and region of the United Kingdom than in 2010.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the acid test of how productive an economy is and how well it is doing is its ability to attract investment from global investors who could deploy capital anywhere in the world? In that context, does he agree that it is a sign of success that the United Kingdom attracts more direct investment than France and Germany combined?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. He has had a very successful business career and knows all about attracting inward investment, and he is absolutely right: the UK has been, and will continue to be, a beacon under this Government for foreign inward investment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

May I congratulate all my hon. Friends who have made such excellent maiden speeches in this debate? I also wish to draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which relates to my former employment, before I joined this House.

This is an excellent Budget both for business and for my constituents in Arundel and South Downs. I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s delivery yesterday, but, more importantly, this is a Budget that will stand the test of time. Before the immediate events of the last week or so, this was an economy whose businesses had wind in their sails, straining at their moorings with a new captain at the helm—a Secretary of State who has personal roots that stretch beyond these shores, into the sort of overseas markets that represent an outsized opportunity to create growth and employment for generations to come. This is important; the only way we can truly level up the whole United Kingdom is with an enterprise and export-led renaissance. It is only business that creates the real jobs, opportunities and wealth that will make our school and university leavers of the future look askance at the idea of ever leaving our great northern cities to move south.

Our natural advantages as a location to start, grow and run a business are immense: a world-class legal system with a strong respect for the rule of law; our position between the Asian and American time zones; a flexible and educated workforce; and, of course, English as our own, but increasingly the world’s, language. This Budget sits alongside a world replete with opportunities.

In that context, I warmly welcome the proposal to increase the business rates discount to 100%, and to expand it to the leisure and hospitality sectors. But may I encourage the Chancellor to go just a little bit further? My constituent, Positive Images Design, is a world-leading supplier to the exhibition sector—which, as we might expect in the wake of the cancellation of events across the globe, is among the very hardest hit. As things stand, this sector and this thriving business in West Chiltington in my constituency would not benefit from the same relief, which I cannot believe was the intention. If it would help, I would be pleased to meet the relevant Minister and give him more details of the case.

I welcome the growing wide recognition that the current structure of business rates is a burden, particularly for small enterprises. These rates tax businesses before they have had the chance to make the first £1 of revenue, and unduly penalise those who remain anchored in their local communities, such as the high streets in the small towns of Arundel, Hurstpierpoint, Storrington and Petworth in my constituency. The measures announced in the Budget go a very long way to relieving the burden for the smallest businesses. I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to a fundamental review and encourage the Business Secretary to be a strong and passionate voice for business in that review—as, indeed, shall I.

While we are on the subject of tax, I am on the record as having said that with the UK being such an attractive place to do business, we should be competitive but have the self-confidence not to compete on having the lowest rate of tax. I fully support the Chancellor’s proposal to maintain the rate of corporation tax at its current level of 19% rather than reduce it further. Indeed, I would go further on a future occasion and support an increase back to £1 in every £5 of profit as part of a fiscally neutral rebalancing of the business rates burden.

Business needs people and people need homes, so I particularly welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of a £400 million brownfield housing fund, and the renewed focus on creating more homes from the millions of acres of real brownfield land across the UK. This has to be the right way to proceed. We need the right homes in the right places, and for those homes to be sustainable. Absolutely the wrong way to proceed would be some of the unsustainable, large-scale housing development that is currently being advocated for my constituency and is blighting the lives and peace of mind of my constituents. Proposals such as those made by Mayfield Market Towns or at Buck Barn despoil some of our last remaining precious countryside, put native species at risk of extinction, and are fundamentally unsustainable due to the lack of supporting roads, rail, healthcare and social infrastructure. Local neighbourhood plans, democratically supported by residents, already contain provision for the sort of organic, sustainable housing growth that we need. Out of the EU, with a points-based immigration scheme, and with an ageing, if not actually shrinking, population, the types and locations of the dwellings our society will need in future are very different from those being proposed today.

This is a Budget for business, for growth, and for Britain. It seizes the opportunity and it gets it done. I believe we are at the start of a new renaissance of British businesses seizing and leading in all of the sectors that will define the economic winners of the future.