Reducing Costs for Businesses

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend tempts me to get into policy, which is not the purpose of Opposition day debates—as much as the Opposition would like it to be—nor something that I have control over. He has made his point, however, for which I thank him.

We had all that support, and then when omicron came along, the Chancellor announced a further £1 billion of support for the most affected businesses, in particular, again, hospitality and leisure businesses, which had seen a steep drop in consumer demand. Taken together, that shows the Government acting in extraordinary times. I am pleased that the IMF praised our support measures as,

“one of the best examples of coordinated action globally”.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for courteously taking my intervention. As the House knows, I represent the furthest away constituency of mainland UK. Does he agree that in such a constituency, where distance is a huge issue, businesses face special challenges owing to remoteness and the cost of transportation and every other service?

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point that demonstrates the different challenges for different businesses in different parts of the country, and why the half-baked plans that the Labour party has put forward today—almost—demonstrate that it does not have a coherent plan to face the challenges.

All those measures came on top of more than £79 billion of Government loan schemes, which have directly supported over 1.5 million businesses. On the specific point in the Labour motion about repayments, which the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde did not discuss to any great extent in his opening speech, we have already changed the way that they work to provide greater flexibility for individual circumstances through things such as “Pay as you grow”.

At every twist and turn of the virus, the Government have acted decisively to protect businesses and livelihoods. I refute in the strongest possible terms the charge made by the motion that we have failed to support UK businesses through the pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Flynn]

I hoped that the right hon. Member was going to rise to defend Brexit, but unfortunately he chose not to do so, because the fact is that it cannot be defended. It cannot be fixed, as the Labour party seems to think it possibly can.

I talk to businesses in my constituency regularly, and hear about the challenges that they face. Goods that took a couple of days to ship to the continent now take a couple of weeks, if not a couple of months. The order book is not there. The impact is huge. Those businesses’ ability to grow has been constrained and, in exchange for that, the Government tell them they can perhaps have a trade deal with Australia instead, which will do a fraction of good in comparison to the damage being done by leaving the EU. And that is of course before we get on to the labour shortages I mentioned earlier, which are enormous. Businesses seeking to function and to grow simply cannot get the employees they were able to get before. We see some puzzled expressions on the faces of Conservative Members; perhaps that is because they have not been engaging with the hospitality sector. Would the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) like to clarify whether she is disagreeing with the fact that businesses have difficulties in terms of labour shortages? I will happily give way to her. No? Of course not, because the reality is that labour shortages are damaging businesses exponentially. She continues to shake her head, but that is the reality on the ground in hospitality, food processing, agriculture, right across the board, and that is before we get to the public sector challenges, including in recruiting staff to our care homes and hospitals.

So Brexit should be at the forefront of our debate and, frankly, I am a little disappointed that the Labour party seems to be trying to walk away from that. Notwithstanding that, a lot in the Labour motion is somewhat difficult to disagree with. It seeks to raise various topics, including businesses. I think all of us across the Chamber realise there are challenges in relation to business rates; it does not take a genius to figure that out. However, I have some concerns with Labour’s proposals, albeit not necessarily with the motion. What comes next? What does Labour want to replace this with? Coming from a local authority background, I know the huge role business rates play in funding local authorities. Unless you can say, “This is what we are going to replace it with” it is inevitable that the public will say “Where is the detail?” Without seeking to do the Conservative party’s job for it, that is a fair question to ask and Labour is going to have to answer it in due course. We in Scotland have done things slightly differently from the UK Government because in Scotland there is currently 100% rate relief for retail and hospitality, which does not exist in England at present. That is a phenomenal benefit to businesses—[Interruption.]—irrespective of what the chuntering Member, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), is saying.

Beyond business rates, important though that is, the energy situation is of great concern to businesses throughout this United Kingdom and the Government are offering no solutions to that. The easier choice today would of course have been to back the earlier motion in relation VAT, but as I see it the Government have not offered any support for businesses with their energy costs. That is a wrong that needs to be righted as soon as possible, otherwise businesses, not just households, are going to face an unenviable position.

[Jamie Stone]

I can think of examples of families I know personally where the budgeting is so tight that just a pound or two either way gets them into a bad situation. If the fuel bill, or the diesel bill for the car, goes up, they spend less money shopping, and that in turn hits wee businesses in Aberdeen South, in the highlands or wherever. It is a vicious spiral in the wrong direction.

[Stephen Flynn]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point illustrating the knock-on impact the economy will face as a result of the crisis before us. Before finishing, I want to reflect on two further points.