Small Businesses

Debate between Anne Marie Morris and Mary Macleod

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that there needs to be root-and-branch reform. The whole way in which rateable value is calculated is a mystery. The rulebook has got a bit like the tax code. Why are some pubs assessed on turnover, while others are assessed on freehold or rental value? That is arcane and requires a thorough overhaul.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in London, where my constituency is, small businesses are penalised because the higher rateable values there mean that rates are extortionate?

[Anne Marie Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point.

The next area that should be addressed is the VAT cliff: if a business’s turnover reaches £79,000, it is suddenly hit by having to find VAT. It will hardly want to increase prices to its customers by 20% overnight. We could have a ratchet mechanism or go to the EU, which would be perfectly possible. I urge the Government to do so, because we need a derogation.

The Government, but particularly the Treasury, should consider the removal of class 2 national insurance contributions. The self-employed have to pay two classes of contributions, and they find that incredibly confusing. We have a great record on corporation tax, but could we not do more, including by looking at a new, simplified flat tax for the smallest businesses?

We should talk not only about BIS and the Treasury, but the Department for Education, because education is critical to our having a true and sustainable supply of new small businesses. The Government’s introduction of financial education is a fantastic first step, but that is only one piece of the enterprise skill set that an entrepreneur needs.

It is great that apprenticeship schemes have grown under this Government, with 858,000 individuals participating in those schemes this year, but we need more. We need enterprise education for six to 60-year-olds. The World Economic Forum has recommended that there should be enterprise education in every country throughout the period of education. I suggest that we ask Ofsted, which looks at community engagement to measure what schools do, to consider not only that point but business engagement as well.

In relation to funding in the tertiary sector, we should also look at whether institutions are offering enterprise education, which I believe should be available whatever discipline students are reading. Although I applaud Lord Young’s comments about business schools taking a lead, we should remember that they are not the only such place. There is a role for universities to work much more closely with local enterprise partnerships, a point to which I shall return.

Promotion of Women in Business

Debate between Anne Marie Morris and Mary Macleod

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing this important debate on an issue that, for me, is all about aspiration and allowing individuals—men and women—to achieve their potential. We know that many women are stopped from achieving that potential, from being the best they can be and from delivering real value at senior levels in business. We need to do something about that.

I welcome the report from Lord Davies. He has looked at the issue in detail, involved many people in the discussion and come out with a good series of suggestions. I am a strong believer—as might be imagined from me being here—in the importance of having more women in business at senior levels. I worked for more than 20 years in the City in different sectors and have seen the lack of women at senior levels. I fundamentally believe that that is not necessarily because women are doing something wrong—although I agree with my hon. Friend that they can promote themselves better—but because there are serious issues about how we select women and people on to the boards in the City.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the challenge is the structuring of the career path? We are all now living longer. If we could find ways of structuring career paths, whether in the corporate or professional worlds, so that men or women could go into it at different times, that might ease the problem. In the professional and corporate worlds, we see a hub at the age of 30 where it is either make or break—the same time that many women want to have their families. That puts on undue pressure and makes that decision much harder than it would be if we had a career span that was much longer, over the many years that we are going to be working.

[Mary Macleod]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is not a one-size-fits-all way of doing things. Different women will have different career paths and will do things at different stages of their lives. We want the flexibility to adapt to those different career paths and still to allow people to get to the top levels in business. I have seen the lack of opportunity and meritocracy that currently exists in business. We are not drawing from the possible range of talent that exists. That means that organisations suffer, that business and the economy generally suffer, so the country suffers. We need to do something about that, because there is a huge untapped pool of talent.

Why is this issue important? As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald has mentioned, some of the reports and studies are not only about aspiration, but performance. Studies such as one by McKinsey’s have looked at a range of statistics that show that companies with a higher proportion of women in senior management teams, in essence, outperform their rivals, with a 42% higher return on sales, a 66% higher return on invested capital and a 53% higher return on equity. There is improved decision making, as was mentioned. Such companies may also be more responsive to the market, make better decisions and have improved corporate governance.

The current position is an issue. Only 12.5% of directors of FTSE 100 companies are women and only 7.8% of directors of FTSE 250 companies are women. Some 52.4% of companies have no women on their boards at all. That is a disgrace. There are a few reasonably good examples. GlaxoSmithKline, in my constituency, has 38% of senior positions held by women. It is good that that has improved year-on-year in the past five years, and that it has improved at the different levels—whether manager, director, senior vice-president or vice-president. That is what we want to see: an ongoing improvement at all levels so that there is opportunity for all.

In so many organisations, the frustrating thing is that progress has plateaued. Contrary to the widely held myth, there is no evidence to suggest that there is a shortage of appropriately qualified women in the pipeline. There are plenty of women to take on board-level roles, but we need to start to change the thinking about what the requirements are. As Lord Davies said, we must promote on the basis of merit and skills. That is important if we want a true meritocracy, and to have true fairness and opportunity. Lord Davies’ report mentions getting companies to talk about and publish their figures. That is a great starting point and something that we absolutely should do.

Other measures that need to happen include the better mentoring and sponsoring of the next generation of executives. One programme that exists and works very well is the FTSE 100 cross-company mentoring programme. Many chairmen of FTSE 100 companies are trying that new mentoring approach that will help in the long term, because it aims to sponsor, nurture and mentor the next generation and help them with the skills and experience to get to the next level.

More also needs to be done with networking for senior women in business. A study by Higgs and Tyson found that almost half of the directors they surveyed had been recruited through personal friendships and contacts. That is probably something that we all recognise, so it is important to build up those networking opportunities.

We also need to fight media images and stereotypes. The more we can create, promote and highlight role models, the better it will be, because we want the younger generation of women to see that it is possible to get to the top of their business or sector, and that that will happen purely on the basis of fairness and merit.

Also, we should promote companies that have a good record on gender diversity and flexible working options, which, for some people, is important. We have to work with the chairmen of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies so that, as Baroness Bottomley put it, they look through the window when recruiting boards and not in the mirror. That is something that needs to be adjusted so that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald said, people do not recruit only those who are similar to them and who are already on boards but see the value of having new and different skills on boards.