Draft Small Business Commissioner (Scope and Scheme) regulations 2017

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 21st November 2017 General Committees

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for that observation; he has considerable experience in these matters, and I would not be a bit surprised if what he says were the case. I will ask the commissioner to consider that practice and other known dodges—for want of a better word—in the course of his work.

The 2016 Act sets out the broad framework for the Small Business Commissioner. The regulations define “small business” for the purpose of qualification for the commissioner’s services, including the complaints scheme; they also provide further detail about the scheme.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford, a major issue faced by small businesses is that if they challenge late payments, their customers may simply cease trading with them. Small businesses therefore have to decide between waiting 90 or 120 days to be paid or getting no business at all. Changing the culture so that businesses can make complaints without customers knowing who they are will be crucial to solving this problem, which we have wrestled with for many years.

[Margot James]

I agree that confidentiality is often a requirement and that the lack thereof is a disincentive for small businesses to challenge the late payment practices that have been a part of business culture. There is provision for the commissioner to respect the confidentiality of complainants and, indeed, it is his duty to do so unless the complainant gives permission for his or her name, or the company name, to be disclosed. We can discuss that further later in the debate because it is important. I am well aware that in a system that provides for confidentiality, there are occasions when it is impossible to conceal the true identity of the complainant company in reality. The hon. Gentleman raises a difficult issue.

The regulations set out: that a business must have a headcount of fewer than 50 staff on one of the assessment dates or during one of the assessment periods to qualify to use the commissioner’s services; the requirements that must be met before presenting a complaint; the requirements for the form and content of the complaint; the time limit for presenting a complaint; the power for the commissioner to fix and extend time limits and to dismiss complaints; the matters that the commissioner must take into consideration when determining whether an act or omission complained about was fair and reasonable; and factors to be taken into account when deciding whether to identify a respondent in any report of any complaint. They apply to the whole of the United Kingdom.

We consulted between 13 October and 7 December 2016 on how the Small Business Commissioner would handle complaints. We published draft regulations in February and interested parties were invited to comment on them between 24 February and 9 March. The key message from respondents to that consultation was that the regulations should be simple so that the Small Business Commissioner’s services would be as efficient and effective as possible. The regulations will enable the Small Business Commissioner to accept complaints on payment matters from small business suppliers about their larger clients. That is an important part of the Small Business Commissioner’s role in supporting small businesses.

Although the debate is limited to the regulations, I take the opportunity to welcome Mr Paul Uppal to his post as the UK’s first Small Business Commissioner. He competed against many other well-qualified candidates to secure the role. I thank all those who applied for the role and who engaged with the consultations and policy development inside and outside the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

There is, indeed, far too much abuse of the system of cash retention, and it has been going on for too long. The burden of administrative time spent securing payments and the drain on working capital weigh far too heavily on smaller firms in the supply chain, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will be taking action.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

If the Government had only listened in 2015 to the amendments the Labour party tabled to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, we would already have a solution. We were told then that the Government were going to take action. We were told again a few months ago that they were taking action with their proposals about naming and shaming businesses that did not publish their late payments. We now have yet another consultation. Research from Crossflow Payments shows that 74% of small businesses do not believe that the Government’s recent changes will make any difference. Can we have a policy that actually enforces action on late payments, rather than the series of consultations that we have had?

[Margot James]

I agree that action is needed, but it is important that we take the right action. We have undertaken a consultation, the results of which will be published shortly. That will be followed by a consultation on the 2011 changes to the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, which will consider the merits of ring-fencing retentions and the extent to which contractors are making the payment of retentions conditional on the performance of obligations under other, completely separate contracts.

CSC: Redundancies

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Margot James]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will come on to talk about the effect on the public sector contracts that the company has contracted to provide. I mentioned that at the beginning. I first just wanted to cover the rights of the employees in these circumstances and the support that the Government are trying to offer through Jobcentre Plus. I will, indeed, come on to the important matter that the hon. Gentleman just raised.

To conclude on the employment support that we are able to provide, I am hopeful that the rapid response service will be able to assist those workers who have been made redundant in finding alternative employment. Officials at the Department for International Trade have also contacted CSC and are in close contact with Jobcentre Plus.

I will now move on to the potential impact on public services that various right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned. CSC has undertaken numerous contracts with vital services such as, as we have heard, Royal Mail, the police, civil nuclear and the NHS, and it is indeed of concern to us all that the skills and the contractual obligations given by CSC are honoured. Given the situation, I can well understand right hon. and hon. Members’ concerns about the future. The Cabinet Office has assumed responsibility in Government for dealing with CSC on these matters, and is in regular contact with the company about the viability of the contracts it has assumed. It has been given every assurance that the business will be ongoing and unaffected.

[Toby Perkins]

I am pleased with the tone of the Minister’s remarks. However, I wonder whether she shares my concern—I suspect she does from what she has said. We are being given assurances by an organisation that has had four different leaders in the past two years and has gone, as the Minister has rightly identified, through nine rounds of redundancies. The trade unions have reported that the workplace is in chaos and there is a catastrophe of employee confidence. In that kind of environment, where there is a huge financial incentive to deliver in the short term and a track record of failure, does the Minister agree that there is a real need for the Government to pursue the matter and ensure that the assurances are worth the paper they are written on?

[Margot James]

I have sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. I have the assurances from the Cabinet Office, which is in regular contact with CSC, and I am sure that my Cabinet Office colleagues are wary of the information they are being given in the climate that has been described this afternoon. I will undertake to have a direct conversation with my counterpart in the Cabinet Office to test out the assurances that he or she has been given. In the past, I have been exposed to corporations that have been going through this process of rapid change. That can be very worrying, especially where software and computer contracts are the main focus, because there could be a loss of the skills vital to the delivery of such contracts. In this country, we have had many concerns about public sector contracting for IT systems. It would be a reckless Minister who assumed that all was well, given the circumstances we have heard about this afternoon.

Statutory Pubs Code and Pubs Code Adjudicator

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) on securing today’s debate on the Pubs Code Adjudicator, and I thank all Members across the House who have contributed to the excellent and thought-provoking debate. Clearly this subject continues to attract strong views and passionate debate, and I want to reassure the House that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that tied tenants can operate in an environment that is fair and that allows them to thrive. That is why we introduced the pubs code. I pay particular tribute to the role that the hon. Member for Leeds North West played in bringing about that piece of legislation.

The pubs code regulates the relationship between around 11,500 tied pub tenants and the large pub-owning businesses that rent the pubs to them and sell them tied products. The pubs code applies to pub-owning businesses with 500 or more tied pubs in England and Wales. There are currently six pub-owning businesses that fall within the scope of the code: Admiral Taverns; Enterprise Inns; Greene King; Marston’s; Punch Taverns; and Star Pubs & Bars, owned by Heineken.

The two principles of the pubs code are: fair and lawful dealing by pub-owning businesses in relation to their tied tenants; and that tied pub tenants should be no worse off than if they were not subject to any tie. The pubs code should make sure that tied pub tenants: receive the information they need to make informed decisions about taking on a pub or new terms and conditions; have their rent reassessed if they have not had a review for five years; and are enabled to request a market rent only option to go free of tie in specific circumstances, including at a rent review or on the renewal of tenancy.

I will first address the appointment of Mr Newby and the performance issues raised in this debate. I am sure we can return to some of those important issues during my speech. We believe that he is the right person to ensure that the pubs code delivers its statutory objectives and, for reasons I will set out, we think he got off to a good start with his responsibilities.

Since his appointment, Mr Newby has made himself visible and accessible. He has attended at least eight conferences, various events and eight roadshows across the country, at which he has met many stakeholders, including several hundred tenants. He has also taken pains to pursue greater visibility for the pubs code and to raise awareness among tenants by appearing on various television programmes, including a pubs special of “The One Show” and “The Great British Pub Revolution,” with the aim of bringing the pubs code to the attention of a wider audience. I did not watch the programmes, so I cannot comment on their creative content, but they are a means of raising awareness with the target audience.

Through those appearances, Mr Newby has explained his role and responsibilities, and has shown his determination to help to create a fairer business environment for tied pub tenants that allows the pubs, which are so important to our communities, to thrive. Contrary to what we have heard, he has been raising awareness among tenants that under regulation 50:

“A pub-owning business must not subject a tied pub tenant to any detriment on the ground that the tenant exercises, or attempts to exercise, any right under these Regulations.”

It is important that he continues to make that case.

[Toby Perkins]

Will the Minister clarify that, in the context of that desire and regulation 50, a pub-owning business that moves from a tied model to a free-of-tie model will be able to do it with a simple deed of variation? That would make it the only change to the business’s terms and conditions, and all the other terms and conditions would not have to be reviewed as a result. Can she confirm that that is consistent with what she has just said?

[Margot James]

I have great sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I hope that it will be clarified by the Pubs Code Adjudicator in due course. The pubs code itself is not clear on that aspect, and it will be up to the Pubs Code Adjudicator to pronounce on it when he feels that he has enough evidence. I reiterate that I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point.

Mr Newby has received a positive response from tenants, with the majority supporting his role. I accept that some tenants are deeply opposed to his role, and I could not have sat here for the past hour and a half without realising that, even if I had not known beforehand.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for that advertisement for the John Lewis Partnership. I assure the House that there are many other retailers that consumers can trust, and I think I will leave my answer at that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We would not want to give the impression that poor-quality goods are bought from small businesses. We know that small businesses do an excellent job, and the Minister is right to make that point. She is right about the impact on consumers, but does she recognise that where there is a failure to follow standards it is often British manufacturers that are undercut by cheap imports from overseas? What does she intend to do as we head forward to ensure that coming out of the EU does not mean that standards slip and British manufacturers are unfairly treated?

[Margot James]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that all standards derived from the EU that are considered by the UK Government to be necessary, as the vast majority will be, will continue to be enforced. I can reassure him also that National Trading Standards plays a vital role in cross-boundary enforcement, and the intelligence-led approach prevents many of those products from coming into the country in the first place.

Finance Bill

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving me the benefit of some of the history of the House before I was a Member. Many of the opinions of the Secretary of State were indeed prescient. What my hon. Friend has added to the debate is truly shocking.

The public sector is clearly unaffordable. The restructuring has been inevitable; there has been no choice on our side as far as that is concerned. Yes, we will try to make a virtue of a necessity and seek to rebalance the public and private sectors, which this country has long needed irrespective of the conditions in which we now find ourselves.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Lady mentioned the prescience of the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable) and has commented on the size of the debt and how we got into this position. Will she also acknowledge that right up until 2008, before she came to the House, her party was arguing not for less but for more public spending in a raft of areas?

[Margot James]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman intervened because I cannot understand why that point keeps being made by Labour Members. I fought the 2005 general election and our party’s policy was clear: we would share the proceeds of growth. We were not advocating spending at the same rate as the Labour party did when in government; yes, we were arguing for increases, but at a significantly lower rate than was happening under the Labour party. I should like to put that on the record.

I return to my theme that this Budget does a great public service in restoring the private sector as the driver of the growth that will get the country out of the mess that has been left to us to sort out. I want to commend a few of the key features of the Bill. The reduction in corporation tax to 20% for small and medium-sized businesses and the longer-term reduction for larger businesses are key. There is also the Work programme, which is about making work pay. We need to make sure that those who can work have the opportunity to do so—indeed, they must.

There are 50,000 more apprenticeship places and the national insurance holiday for new companies, which do not have to pay any national insurance whatever for the first 10 employees. Furthermore, the Government have abandoned the Labour party’s dangerous plan to levy an additional rate of employers’ national insurance and there has been a £250 million increase in the enterprise growth fund, meaning that medium-sized companies in this country have access to more credit. Those measures will restore the private sector. Painful measures that we are obliged to place on the public sector—with the full support, I believe, of the public—will be more than made up for by the recovery of the private sector, because, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s projections, employment will rise year on year. I know that Labour Members are sceptical about that, but I believe in British industry and think that our private sector, including all the small companies in my constituency, is ready for the challenge. We have at last liberated it so that it can take up the challenge. I have every confidence that through the recovery of the private sector, the country will prosper once again.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Margot James and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller) on their maiden speeches, and also my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), whose maiden speech, sadly, I missed? I shall have to catch up with it in Hansard tomorrow. I also congratulate any other Members who made their maiden speeches this afternoon.

It is said that “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” but I must congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for doing just that. What a sow’s ear it was, however. Let me revisit the legacy we have inherited from the Labour party. We are borrowing £1 for every £4 that we spend. National debt is running at £3 billion per week. We have a budget deficit of £155 billion, which is 10% of GDP.

As if these headline statistics are not bad enough, there has also been the corrosive effect of some of the shibboleths that the previous Government instilled in our country. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) has just mentioned the fact that public spending grew at a dramatic rate under the previous Government, from less than 40% in ’97 to 48% in 2007. They established the lie that for every social ill—for every problem—there must be a Government solution, and that every Government solution must carry an ever-rising price tag.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has just taken on the dramatic challenge of reducing poverty in our country. He could give a very good answer to the question the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) asked of the previous speaker about where we might have seen some cuts. The right hon. Gentleman described a situation in his constituency, where children were being sent to school with nothing to eat and having had no breakfast. The Government’s response was instantly to set up a breakfast club—paid for from hard-pressed taxes on people on low pay—thereby undermining the parents who struggle alongside other parents who think it acceptable to send their children out of the house in the morning with nothing to eat. That undermines those parents who struggle and who do provide for their children and do bring them up properly. That is just a small example of additional expenditure that is merely undermining family life.

There is nothing progressive about taxing the next generation for our out-of-control consumption. There is nothing progressive about putting our recovery at risk by continuing the borrowing, and the spending that will inevitably result in higher interest rates and higher mortgages and more people out of work, which all of us in this House are—

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Margot James]

I certainly will.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Lady mentioned higher interest rates and, of course, her party knows all about that because it was under a Conservative Government that we had record repossessions and interest rates went up to 15%. Is she aware that interest rates under the Labour Government have been lower than at any other time in history?

[Margot James]

Interest rates reduced partly, of course, thanks to the excellent management of the economy by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, and also partly because of our exit from the exchange rate mechanism, which I feel all of us on the Conservative Benches were only too relieved to see at the time.

If I may return to the present day, I was pointing out that there is nothing progressive about some of Labour’s policies, and with the interest on our debt heading for £70 billion a year by 2014, we cannot sit here and do nothing. That really is the ultimate hypocrisy given Labour’s fiscal plans, of which we are all aware, and which were revealed in the previous Budget. Some £59 billion-worth of spending cuts and tax increases were made public, but where they would hit was never made clear. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health was able to unearth some of the detail through freedom of information requests. Many trusts throughout the country revealed exactly where those cuts were going to be made. In my area, the West Midlands strategic health authority was going to make them by ordering cuts in front-line services, hospital beds and the number of nurses and doctors. So we in the west midlands were clear about the nature of some of the cuts that were going to be on order had Labour stayed in government.

Given that we are faced with the terrible legacy that I have just outlined, I applaud the Chancellor for his many acts of brilliance in the Budget, which I shall outline, starting with those concerning pensioners. I am connected with groups that represent older people, and have been for many years. I think that the late, great Baroness Castle of Blackburn would have been very pleased to see at last the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings, for which she long campaigned, but she would have been very sad that after 13 years of Labour Government it has taken a Conservative Chancellor, in his first Budget, to bring that sense of hope back to our pensioner community. Indeed, he has gone one step further by introducing the triple lock of ensuring that, whichever is the greatest of the rise in prices, the rise in earnings or the figure of 2.5% will be our tribute to pensioners, as a minimum, year on year.

On the tax proposals, I can say from the bottom of my heart that none of us wants to increase tax. The VAT rise, which I feel is the legacy of the Labour party, is not such a regressive tax according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which makes a greater study of these matters than I do, given that the poorer population spends a greater proportion of its income on items that are exempt from VAT. That is a point worth remembering. I am very pleased that the low paid are being taken out of income tax to the tune of 800,000 people a year, and I acknowledge the presence of the Liberal Democrats in our coalition as the authors of a number of these policies. I am delighted that low-paid people are being helped in that way.

I was one of the Conservative Members who were deeply concerned about the prospect of a rise in capital gains tax, and I am very impressed by how the Chancellor has gone about increasing that tax in a way that protects business assets, protects people at the lower rate of income tax and assigns a more modest increase than we were all expecting to those paying tax at the higher rate. We can all be very pleased by the outcome of the concerns that we expressed on that subject.

I was also delighted to see protection built in for capital spending, which has been really slashed in the past 12 months. I have been lobbying on behalf of the hospice in my constituency, which had received approval for capital funding, not all which was funded—that is a familiar refrain. I was delighted to hear last week that it had received approval in full for its funding. I shall meet the Minister for Housing on behalf of Dudley council to press for the completion of funding for new council housing in the Quarry Bank ward of my constituency, which was promised and partially committed to in funding terms. I was very pleased to see that signal in the Budget.

None of us likes freezes and none of us likes the idea that someone living on benefits will receive a cut, but in the current climate it cannot be right that families with an income of up to £80,000 a year benefit from tax credits. I applaud the Chancellor for bringing in limits for housing benefit, which has risen out of control over the past 10 years.

Overall, I welcome the Budget. Despite some of its measures, which we deeply regret having to take, it rebalances the public and private sectors—not before time. The reduction of corporation tax to 24% by 2012 and its reduction to 20% for small and medium-sized enterprises is very welcome indeed. There are many SMEs in my part of the world, so that measure is marvellous. Manufacturing can continue to claim full allowances for depreciation, albeit over a longer period, and that is welcome news for the manufacturing sector.

I welcome the review of public sector pensions. We will see the detail in due course, but the £25 billion cost to the public purse of unfunded public sector pensions is a great worry. There is deep unfairness. The gap between public and private sector pensions is daylight robbery from people struggling on lower-paid jobs in the private sector. It must be righted. I was horrified to hear the general secretary of Unison say that the Government

“won’t know what has hit them”

if they attempt pension reforms. That bullying defence of vested interests flies in the face of the fairer society that, through the Budget, we are trying to build.

Coming from the west midlands, I warmly welcome the commitment to tax incentives for employment outside London and the south-east. That rebalancing of our economy is long overdue.

The best way to support the crucial public services that we all want—on both sides of the House—is to put them on a sound financial footing, something the previous Government so miserably failed to do. It falls to us to put that vision into practice.