Businesses: Employee-shareholder Scheme

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

It was interesting to listen to the noble Lord opposite on that. We are doing more than the previous Government did to encourage employee-stakeholders in businesses. This particular scheme is one of several that are geared towards helping, and giving some flexibility to, young, innovative companies starting up. I am pleased to say that there were 270,000 business start-ups in the UK in 2012, the highest annual figure since 2007. In 2012, there were 15,000 more business start-ups than business closures—the second year in succession that this has occurred. Clearly, there is some success coming through, so I do not agree with the tenet of the argument.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, on the Government’s successes in employee-share extensions, will my noble friend tell us the number of Post Office employees who took up the offer of shares in the recent privatisation? On employee rights, will my noble friend tell us when the initiative of the Secretary of State for Business to have a more generous award on minimum wage rates will come to a conclusion?