Small Business Saturday

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan]

I certainly do, and that is a topic that I hope to cover later on.

Last year, 16.5 million UK adults supported a small business on Small Business Saturday, and I am sure that this year’s campaign will be equally successful when it takes place on Saturday 5 December. However, although it is important to raise awareness of the challenges small businesses face on the first Saturday of every December, we must ensure that the campaign leaves a positive and lasting impact on small businesses all year round.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I want to pay tribute to the others, along with myself, who instigated the bringing over of Small Business Saturday from the US to the UK, including the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce and the British Independent Retailers Association, and to thank Michelle Ovens and the team at Small Business Saturday UK above all for setting it up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important to acknowledge that Small Business Saturday is not all about shopping? Our small businesses do a lot more than just provide retail services and products and do so much more for our economy. Small Business Saturday is as much about people outside of retail as it is about those within it.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I absolutely agree. It is easy for us to focus on shopping and the high street, particularly pre-Christmas when that is what it is all about. Retail is a large part of it, but small businesses employ people in all sorts of sectors and many of them, such as my business in my previous existence, which I hope to touch on later, do not have the high visibility of the high street.

Other hon. Members will be able to relate to concerns about decline, as shop closures and empty retail units are an issue that stretches right across the UK. As in other constituencies, the situation in Inverclyde varies considerably. The largest town of my constituency, Greenock, is primarily served by an enclosed shopping centre populated by larger retail outlets which has struggled in recent years with closures and has failed to live up to the potential that the centre of Greenock has to offer. In other parts of my constituency, the smaller towns of Gourock and Kilmacolm have been comparatively successful in maintaining more vibrant town centres, mainly populated by small, independent businesses. However, they are not helped when large banks withdraw their high street presence and contribute to the reduction in footfall.

There are no easy answers when it comes to regenerating our high streets, but Inverclyde provides a valuable lesson: smaller, independent retailers are an integral part of creating thriving town centres.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) for securing the debate and to everyone who has contributed to it. I will begin with some stats: 99.3% of United Kingdom businesses are small businesses. Small businesses employ 12.4 million people, which is 48% of total private sector employment. They have a combined annual turnover of £1.2 trillion, which is 33% of turnover in the private sector, and there are a record 5.4 million private sector businesses in 2015, which is an increase of 908,000 from the start of 2010. I say that to give context and to show that we should never underestimate the huge importance of our small businesses.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) and others who brought Small Business Saturday to this country. It is a welcome American import that has been hugely successful. I was honoured to go to the launch of this year’s Small Business Saturday in July, where I learned a great deal. I was already a fan of it—it has been in place for a couple of years—but I had not appreciated this annual event’s importance for small businesses not just in having customers going along to celebrate and put their money where their mouth is, but in their relationships with each other. I was really struck by the fact that Small Business Saturday is a great opportunity for small businesses to develop and expand their networks and to learn much from each other.

The hon. Member for Inverclyde made the good point that Small Business Saturday is not just about celebrating retail, though there is nothing wrong with that. Small businesses in our high streets and towns encompass IT firms, accountants, solicitors, health providers and leisure providers—there is a long list.

[Mr Umunna]

I thank the Minister for her kind words. It is important to state that Small Business Saturday is not about being against our large businesses, because the relationship between our small and bigger businesses is symbiotic—they depend on each other. Small businesses are an important part of larger businesses’ supply chains, so overall this is a pro-business campaign for every business, whether big or small, because everyone benefits in the end.