Oral Answers to Questions
Callum Anderson Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Gareth Thomas
One reason the hon. Gentleman’s party lost the confidence of business is that it promised many, many times that it would reform business rates and never did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has set out our commitment to permanently lower business rates for the hospitality sector—we have already taken steps in that regard—and she will set out our plans to do even more. That is one way in which we are backing up our commitment to SMEs in the hospitality sector and more generally.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)
On 26 June, the Department published our trade strategy, announcing the expansion of UK Export Finance’s capacity to £80 billion. We also announced measures to give smaller firms, including those in Buckingham and Bletchley, better access to export protection insurance. The significant increase in the capacity of the British Business Bank will also help to improve access to capital for SMEs, including, potentially, in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Callum Anderson
Innovative high-growth companies, such as Envisics in Bletchley, are developing and exporting world-leading technology-driven products but face difficulties securing the domestic capital needed to scale up. Too often, overseas investors and, sometimes, Governments, offer both finance and other incentives for them to relocate. Will the Minister set out in more detail how his Department is working across Whitehall to ensure that domestic financial institutions, including Government-backed entities, are helping companies like Envisics to firmly anchor their innovations here in the UK?
Gareth Thomas
We heard during our SME consultation that one of the biggest issues facing small and medium-sized businesses that want to scale up relates to access to finance. Indeed, since 2011, the stock of bank lending to SMEs relative to GDP has fallen by around 50%, which graphically demonstrates the significance of my hon. Friend’s point. We have been working closely with Treasury colleagues in particular, and when we launched the industrial strategy, we also launched a funding arrangement for the British Business Bank that will provide £4 billion of capital to our high-growth innovative businesses to ensure that they remain anchored in the UK and are able to scale up here.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am always keen to update the hon. Member and colleagues on the situation with British Steel. We have cancelled the redundancy consultation and removed the immediate risk to 2,700 jobs. We have taken on new apprentices and invested significantly in improving health and safety on the site. We have provided significant working capital—that does not take into account yet the future revenue that will come. I am sure he will have been pleased to see that Network Rail has awarded British Steel a contract worth £500 million. We will continue to ensure that there is a long-term future for British Steel, and we will keep the House and himself updated to that effect.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)
The Government-backed invest in women taskforce is addressing many of these issues through its ecosystem working group, which promotes better access to networks, to support and to procurement opportunities. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, though, to say that we need to go further. The small business strategy will set out a range of further measures in that regard.
UK-US Trade and Tariffs
Callum Anderson Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions and her submission. I am pleased to hear that she feels we need to end any potential trade war—although I am pretty certain I heard her in the media last week demanding that we escalate the trade war. I do not think that is in any of our interests, and it is not the route and direction we need to go in.
The hon. Lady mentions that there is no sign of the UK being treated in any different way; she will know that the US has a view of VAT that we do not share—the US compares VAT to its sales tax. If we look at our rate of VAT and the comparable treatment of the European Union, we see that there is a differential. That does not satisfy me, because I believe we could seriously get to a position in which we not only avoid the imposition of additional trade tariffs and barriers, but deepen our trade relationship and remove some of the barriers that already exist, particularly in the trade in services. That is the Government’s objective.
We of course work closely with a whole range of friends and allies, but when they go into any negotiation, they represent their own national or customs union interest, and we do the same. I would not expect any country to go into a negotiation trying to represent the UK; other countries will have their own interests. I do the same for the United Kingdom: I have to put our interests first. There is a different structure to the trading relationship between the US and the UK—for instance, the US does not have with us the large deficit in traded goods that it has with the EU or China—so it is a different level of conversation and it allows us to put our own interests first. That is all that the Government seek to do in our policy towards the US.
The hon. Lady mentions a range of other issues that I recognise. Colleagues know that I had strong views on the very large increases in industrial energy costs that occurred after 2010—there was an increase of almost 50% in real terms—and I think they need to be addressed. The industrial strategy and other Government initiatives set out our wider policy objectives and tools in this area. The consultation and call for input that I announced today is much more about the formal steps we need to take to understand from businesses the impact and give them the chance to put forward their views. As I say, that will not be necessary if we can come to an agreement, which I believe all Members want us to do. I believe that the relationship can be deepened. If we get it right, it will not come at a cost to our other key trading relationships, such as with the European Union. That is the Government’s objective and I welcome any support from throughout the House for fulfilling it.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Yesterday’s dramatic shift in US trade policy marks an historic abdication of the principles of open commerce and global trade that have underpinned the economies of the western world since the end of the second world war. Tariffs bring no winners—there are only losers, through higher costs for consumers and higher barriers for business and industry. Will the Secretary of State set out how the Government are working with international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation to prevent further escalation and position the UK as a leading champion for open markets?
Jonathan Reynolds
I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s question. He is right that this is a substantial change in US policy. It is important that, even if we do not agree with some of the decisions made and the thinking that underpins them, we recognise where they come from. Indeed, they were part of the US presidential campaign, so we have been able to prepare the ground for our conversations.
My hon. Friend asked about international co-operation. We are strongly involved with the WTO, and particularly supported the re-election of Dr Ngozi as its director-general. It is important to remember that despite the problems the multilateral system faces, it is still the basis on which the vast majority of trade around the world takes place. We will continue to play a constructive role in relation to the WTO, and any multilateral organisation, where that serves our interests.
Oral Answers to Questions
Callum Anderson Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Sarah Jones
The right hon. Gentleman is right that the west midlands is a big exporter to many different countries, including the US and others. Of course, we will keep talking with the US, as the Secretary of State has been doing, and will ensure that we are standing up for British industry and doing the right thing.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
The regulatory environment does not work as well as it should. Unnecessary red tape is choking competitiveness, creating unnecessary burdens for business and putting up barriers to growth. That is why we are introducing a Government-wide target to reduce the administrative costs of regulation by 25% by the end of this Parliament. That will be supported by a baselining exercise to understand the administrative costs of regulation to businesses. The Prime Minister will set out more details later today. This is just the beginning; details of our ambitious action plan to reform the regulatory landscape will be set out shortly.
Callum Anderson
Over eight years and four Prime Ministers, the last Conservative Government commissioned review after review into UK corporate governance and audit reform, and delivered absolutely nothing. For UK plc to be globally competitive, we need robust corporate governance frameworks which balance the needs of investors and society for information with the administrative burdens on companies. Will the Minister update the House on what progress his Department is making on bringing forward an audit reform and corporate governance Bill?
Justin Madders
As my hon. Friend is right to recognise, this issue has been around for some time, and the Government have announced their intention to publish a draft audit reform and corporate governance Bill for scrutiny in this Session. Investors and the public need access to truthful reporting from our most important businesses on their finances and related issues. My Department continues to progress that important work, and a timetable for the publication of the Bill will be confirmed in the usual way for draft legislation in due course.
Oral Answers to Questions
Callum Anderson Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds
I welcome the hon. Member’s question. She is right that some of the issues that most affect businesses in our constituencies often sit in other Departments. The role of my Department is to focus on and champion those issues across all of Government, whether they sit neatly in the Department or not. She correctly highlights the incredible and important role that rural businesses play, and their social as well as economic benefits. Her points about transport were well made. One of the big changes in the Budget was the ability to focus on long-term investments, which was recognised by the Office for Budget Responsibility in its assessment that the productive potential of the UK will grow significantly over the next decade because of that increased focus—investment, investment, investment. Transport is a great element of that, whether in my constituency or in hers. I assure her that the needs that she articulates are considered at the highest levels of Government.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
The Minister for Industry (Sarah Jones)
Growth is the Government’s No. 1 mission and, in her Mansion House speech, the Chancellor announced a package of reforms to drive growth and investment across the UK. I have lost count of the number of times I have had conversations with businesses where they talked about how our appetite for risk is not in the right place, and we are looking to reform that. Here in DBT, we are driving change through our new industrial strategy working across Departments, which we will publish in the spring.
Callum Anderson
High-growth companies across Buckingham and Bletchley rely on foreign direct investment for their growth and innovation. Will the Minister set out the steps her Department and the Minister for Investment are taking to ensure that the Office for Investment can attract more foreign private investment to help the high- potential industries in which Britain excels?
Sarah Jones
We have an expanded Office for Investment, which brings together the Department for Business and Trade, No. 10 and the Treasury. Our Investment Minister is working at pace travelling around the world to bring in investment. I met her and the Office for Investment this week, and we are in constant dialogue about how we can bring more foreign direct investment into the country, building on the £63 billion announced at the investment summit, and how we can kick-start the economy after 14 years of failure.