Business Rates

Brooks Newmark Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

That is a vital point. In rural communities, village shops are absolutely crucial, and as Members have just heard, research from the Association of Convenience Stores says that many of the people who serve us in those stores are literally living in poverty. That should serve to show Government Members the reality of what is happening.

There is an inconsistency at the heart of the Government’s approach. They believe that the market decides and they do not believe in the role of government. That is why they scrapped the regional development agencies, which delivered and had real scope and expertise. That is why they scrapped Business Link, which was a useful single point of contact, and left businesses in need of support to fend for themselves. I do not pretend that Business Link or the RDAs were perfect, but they needed reforming, not scrapping, and the void left in their place has been one of the causes of the three wasted years of flatlining that we have seen since 2010.

Local enterprise partnerships have spent much of those three wasted years trying to make it clear what their purpose is, and the Government’s “mentors me” website has received four times more visits from firms offering to be experts than from people who need expertise. That says absolutely everything about how effective the “mentors me” website has been.

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. If the country has been flatlining, can he explain why 400,000 new businesses have set up since 2010?

[Toby Perkins]

The important question is this: how many of those businesses have gone under? In every recession, large numbers of people are unable to find a job, and they go on to set up their own businesses. I set up a business under similar circumstances—desperation is a pretty decent motive for setting up a business. The reality is that we have had three years of a flatlining economy and difficult circumstances. The hon. Gentleman might not be able to understand that, but the people in my community certainly do.

[Toby Perkins]

I certainly would not. My hon. Friend makes an important point about the scale of the recovery, which so far has been less than a third of that predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility in 2010. The full extent of the failure of the Government’s policy is there for all to see.

[Mr Newmark]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is rather better than the one he made last time. I will give him one more chance.

[Mr Newmark]

I just want to help the hon. Gentleman. Not only did the International Monetary Fund establish that we have the fastest growth of any major economy, but we have created 400,000 jobs. If we have failed so much, why is it that we have created 1.1 million net new jobs?

[Toby Perkins]

Once again, we hear from Conservative Members who think that it is a success if people are in work but in poverty. I had someone in my constituency surgery just two weeks ago who is doing three of the jobs that have been created and he still cannot afford to pay the mortgage—that is the reality of the recovery that they are delivering. The hon. Gentleman might sit there and tell his constituents, “Don’t worry, trust me, I’ve seen the figures and everything is getting better,” but people look in their wallets at the end of the month and know that in 40 out of the past 41 months wages have gone up by less than the costs that they face. That is the reality of the recovery that his party is delivering.

Lending to small firms has been a major problem since the banking crisis. Labour’s enterprise finance guarantee scheme made a difference, but the funding problem for small and medium-sized enterprises has become a crisis since 2010. Net lending has fallen in 24 of the past 30 months and SMEs still rank access to finance as a key business issue.

The Government are failing on the high street. They failed to give the Portas review serious backing and the local authority funding bombshell undermined the very organisations that Mary Portas envisioned would lead the small shop revolution. A cost of doing-business crisis is hitting British business, with 87% of firms reporting that energy costs have gone up in the past year and 83% of firms believing that the cost of doing business will be higher next year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Newmark]

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Braintree district council on using the savings it has made to put aside £100,000 to give concessions to small businesses that want to come to the town or fill empty shops?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I look forward to visiting Braintree this weekend for small business Saturday. He gives a good example of an area that has used its powers to do the right thing for local businesses, embracing some of the work through its Portas pilot and even going further. I congratulate Braintree district council and look forward to seeing in practice the excellent work it has done to bring down car parking charges for the benefit of local residents.

Let us be clear: Labour would have ducked the tough decisions taken to tackle the budget deficit—even within local government, Labour still has £52 billion-worth of cuts that it has not outlined. All Labour offers is more borrowing, more spending and more debt. Its plans do not reduce; they redistribute, in a sleight of hand.