Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

Over the last few years, the thing that I have heard most from business—whether it be from the Federation of Small Businesses, the chambers of commerce or individual businesses that I have dealt with in my own business, as a parliamentary candidate or, for the past 10 months or so, as an MP—is that there is too much regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) made the point extremely well earlier, and just how much of a predicament that poses for business growth cannot be underestimated. It really does hamper too many business men, particularly those in small businesses, who spend too much of their time dealing with regulation. They spend more time dealing with that and feeding back data than they ever do developing and selling their businesses. That has got to stop. I congratulate the Government on taking steps to deal with it.

Business is unlikely to thank the Labour party or Opposition Members for tabling this motion. When business people look through it, they will find that it contains nothing positive about either this country’s business or what the Labour party suggests should be done about it. Perhaps we are back to the original blank sheet of paper; I suspect that it will stay like that for some time yet.

What business is more interested in is not the clunking fist of Whitehall that pulls a lever and delivers a box that it has to fit into—through some fictionally created regional development agency that was simply not delivering—but the opportunity to develop its own destiny. In my area, for example, the New Anglia local enterprise partnership is excited about the opportunities available for Norfolk and Suffolk businesses to work together. It is something that they desired, which they brought forward themselves, and it is led by the business community. This is not a Government quango or something directed from Whitehall, but something that the businesses want, working on issues that they want to work on. That is hugely important to the LEP. It is why organisations ranging from Adnams and the Federation of Small Businesses to the energy industry and companies such as Lotus are excited about what this can deliver. It has been fantastic to see businesses working together, and with local authorities, to deliver the LEP for our area.

The key is the “L” in “LEP”—local. The LEP can look at what Norfolk and Suffolk want and need. That is why it is able to focus correctly on tourism, for example, or other industries that can create jobs and develop the economy more quickly and more cheaply than almost anything else. Energy, as I say, is also hugely important to our region. The energy industry in our area is represented largely by an organisation called the East of England Energy Group, which brings together private companies, which fund it, support it and work together within it. The LEP has recognised that and is working with the energy industry.

One important shortage is skills. There is a huge gap between the demand for skills in the energy industry—we have a burgeoning energy industry, with even more to come from renewable energy and wind farms—and what is currently available. That is why I congratulate the Department and the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning on the great work already done. As we have just heard, they are now delivering more than 100,000 apprenticeships for various ages. Potentially even more important is the fact that colleges will have the freedom to develop the skill sets that people need in their local areas to deliver for business.

The energy industry in my region has been screaming out for some time, but it has not been telling me about the great work that the RDAs were doing or thanking the previous Government for what they did. It has been saying, “We need freedom from regulation, and we need to be able to develop skills for the future.” I urge the Minister and his Department to view carefully and sympathetically the bid from Norfolk and Suffolk for a skills centre that would focus particularly on the delivery of skills for the energy industry.

The Government’s moves to free up colleges, create apprenticeships and invest money are enabling us to develop the skill sets that our country, and in particular my region, needs. It is that development of skill sets that will deliver growth, and it is that education and those apprentices that will enable our economy to develop. I congratulate the Department, and our Government as a whole, on the fantastic work it is doing in that regard. It is just a shame that the Opposition seem to have no ideas of their own to take us forward.