Small Business Saturday

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Mosley]

All of us, as Members of Parliament, receive complaints about business rates from our constituents and those who run businesses. The cost of business rates comes straight off the bottom line of a business—straight out of profit and straight out of the money that people take home at the end of the day—and it has a huge impact on businesses. That is especially true in a constituency such as mine, where we have a thriving and popular city centre with very high rental values. The rateable values for small shops in the city centre are quite extortionate. I welcome the announcements about the reform of business rates, the extension of small business rate relief and the increase of the rebate for small businesses from £1,000 to £1,500 in April.

As our economy grows and evolves, so do our small businesses. Whereas small business used to mean the corner shop on the high street, it can now mean artisan producers on stalls at farmers markets, family-run restaurants and bars, an international e-business run by a student from his bedroom or a boutique clothes business run from the kitchen table by a full-time mum. The fact that small business in the UK is booming is great news for Britain, great news for jobs and great news for wealth creation. Across the country, record numbers of people are starting their own small businesses, and British entrepreneurs created a record number of new businesses last year. Research from the national enterprise campaign shows that more than 526,000 businesses were created in 2013, which was up from 484,000 in 2012 and 440,000 in 2011. We all want that trend to continue.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Will he join me in applauding the increased number of women who are setting up small businesses and the growth in female entrepreneurship in this country, which the Government have nurtured?

[Stephen Mosley]

Of course I will. Not only are women setting up small businesses in record numbers, but young people are doing the same. Chester university is running some fantastic courses to support entrepreneurs, which get young people out there so that when they leave university they will consider the option of setting up their own business. Young people, women and ethnic minorities are all people whom we want to help to set up their own small business, and they are all doing so in record numbers.

The Government have done a huge amount to help. As we saw in yesterday’s autumn statement, the Chancellor is willing to give even more support to small businesses. There is still a huge amount that local communities, local groups and local businesses can do to help themselves, because the people who most benefit from having successful, popular and thriving local shops are local communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, I think for the first time, Mr Hollobone, in this important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) on securing the debate. I had the great pleasure of visiting Chester with him recently, so I know how wonderful that city is and about the important investment that is going into the city centre.

I pay tribute to my local branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, in particular Tim Colman, the regional vice-chairman, who does an extraordinary amount to support local businesses in my area. In the work that he does, he goes above and beyond the call of duty.

My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) spoke about his experience as a small business man. His comments resonated with me because my father was a small business man, so I recognise exactly the challenges he described. Running a small business is a tough job, especially for those with families. We should all pay tribute to the people who take that risk—who put themselves out there and run businesses to generate income not only for their own family, but for other people as well.

[Andrew Bingham]

Like my right hon. Friend’s father, my late father set up his business at the age of 27. The whole family were part of that business, because dad set it up and we lived and fell by his efforts. We were born into that as we came through as the next generation.

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is in the blood, and we can see that in him.

Small business Saturday gives us all an opportunity to think about and celebrate small businesses not only nationally, but in our own communities. It is important that people shop locally. Residents of Basingstoke can do that every day of the week, but they have an extra opportunity to do so next week, because on Friday the Hampshire farmers market, one of the largest in the country, will be in Basingstoke, showing that the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit is very much alive and kicking in my part of the world. I encourage everyone to go along and see the entrepreneurial spirit of Hampshire showcased there.

As I said, people in Basingstoke can shop locally every day of the week and our local council has played a great role in that achievement. The Viables Craft Centre on Harrow way is home to a number of small, local businesses, which have had the opportunity to come together to create the right environment for their products. They include the Butterfly Tree florists and Les Jolies Choses, which was set up by Lisa Wyatt—I know her well—who, starting from just an idea, set up a business that is now thriving. That is the epitome of what one thinks about when one celebrates small businesses.

Of course in Basingstoke we also have the top of town shopping area, our historic area, which many overlook. It is the site of our 900-year-old market and the Basingstoke assembly rooms, made famous by Jane Austen because they provided much of the material she used in books such as “Mansfield Park.” Whenever hon. Members think about shopping in Basingstoke, I urge them to think about its history as well as its modernity.

I mentioned the importance of local authorities in building small businesses and nowhere can that be more true than in Basingstoke. In the past year, we have seen more than 1,000 new businesses formed in Basingstoke—indeed, we have more than 6,800 small businesses, which account for 98% of the businesses in the borough. They grew by 6% in the past year and they are forecast to grow by a similar amount in the next 12 months.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and they have been nurtured by our local authority through a variety of measures. Our local council has a procurement strategy that helps to support local small businesses, so that they can tender more effectively for contracts—a really positive action that can make an enormous difference—and we have a small business concordat, which helps that come into play. The local council has also invested in small businesses. In particular, it has ensured that our top of town is small business-friendly. We have a shop-front grant scheme to help improve the appearance of the shops in the top of town, with up to £5,000 made available through the council, and we are continuing to develop that area as a centre of retail activity in the town. In particular, I thank Councillor Terri Reid, who spearheaded that initiative. I know that local retailers are also grateful. I think it is the teamwork and partnership between our local small businesses, the local council and parliamentarians that makes that work as well as it can.

We like to celebrate small business success in Basingstoke. We have the Inspire business awards, now the largest business awards in Hampshire. This year we celebrated small business of the year winner the Basingstoke Energy Services Co-operative, a fantastic organisation that I know well. An outstanding example of a co-operative run on sustainable values, it is a deserving winner of the Inspire award. This Saturday, I, like many other right hon. and hon. Members, will be going along to join small businesses in our market square to celebrate small business Saturday.

I would like to take a couple of minutes to comment on some of the announcements made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday that will be of particular benefit to businesses in my constituency and indeed every constituency, such as the fuel duty freeze and the structural review of business rates, as well as the road improvements announced earlier this year. In my constituency, the improvements to the M3 in the Winchester and Fleet areas as well as the Black Dam roundabout improvements funded by the Government will make a huge difference to local businesses’ ability to get in and out of the town, improving their ability to trade effectively.

The abolition of employers’ national insurance contributions for those taking on apprentices is also a positive measure for small businesses, which are taking a real risk when they take on extra staff. The more the Government can do to mitigate that risk, the more likely small businesses are to take on extra staff, so I particularly wanted to put on record my thanks to the Chancellor for that measure.

There are a number of other measures that I could talk about, but it is important that the House notes the positive way in which the Chancellor’s autumn statement was received by businesses in Hampshire. The Hampshire chamber of commerce said that the Chancellor’s statement will help to create jobs and stimulate economic activity. The Federation of Small Businesses in Hampshire has specifically welcomed the extension to the funding for lending scheme, which will help to provide cash for small businesses. Access to finance can be the difference between a business succeeding and it not succeeding, so it is that sort of insightful announcement that has done so much to generate such a positive reception from businesses in Basingstoke and throughout Hampshire.

If we are to make sure that our economy is the success that we need it be, we must look to the future. I have three questions for the Minister about how we ensure the health of businesses, and small businesses in particular, in the future. In Basingstoke, we are incredibly fortunate to have been nominated by Surrey university to be a hub for the development of 5G technologies, translating 5G research and development into businesses of the future. We will be working with Surrey university’s innovation centre and a consortium of Huawei, Samsung, Fujitsu and many others to ensure that that incredible research is grown into British businesses. That is an exciting opportunity for my community and something that we are well placed to do, because of the incredible skills that we have in our local work force.

My question for the Minister is: is he satisfied by the progress being made in connectivity for small businesses? If we are to exploit not only 4G but 5G technologies to their utmost, we need to make sure that small businesses have the sort of connectivity that enables them to do that. In bygone years, connectivity was all about transport—trains, roads and aeroplanes. Those remain important, but into the millennium and the next century we will need to ensure that broadband connectivity is at the heart of that as well.

My second question for the Minister is about the role of small business in getting more people into work. I am particularly interested in the fact that under this Government we now have record numbers of women in employment, which should be applauded. There has been a global rise in the number of female entrepreneurs, and the gap between the number of women and of men entrepreneurs is closing. Interestingly, the Harvard Business Review recently produced a report stating that 37% of enterprises globally are run by women; 126 million women are running businesses around the world. Dow Jones research has shown that venture-backed companies found to be successful had twice the number of women involved in forming them. Women have a critical role to play in successful businesses. The Government have already done a huge amount to support women into employment, but what else is the Minister planning to make sure that women play a full role in the economic success of this country?

On the back of that, for me, social enterprises are a hugely important part of the ability of this country to form new and small businesses. I pay tribute to Sue Dovey, the chief executive of Action Hampshire, who runs the School for Social Entrepreneurs in Hampshire. We have numerous success stories coming through that organisation of women setting up businesses and social enterprises that are hugely successful and beneficial to our community. In particular, I pay tribute to the work of Catherine Waters-Clark, who set up Inspero, a social enterprise giving young people the opportunity to grow vegetables and their own food and then to learn how to cook it. What a wonderful example of how social enterprise can start up a small business that is incredibly important and useful to our local community. My question to the Minister is, what more will he do to support social enterprises, which are a fantastic opportunity for women and men to get into employment or set up their own businesses?

Last but by no means least, there is the important role of enterprise in the lives of young people in this country. In Hampshire, we have an active Young Enterprise organisation. Young Enterprise is the largest business and education charity in the UK, supporting 250,000 young people to learn about business, and it is active in my constituency. One of the most important things that we can do during a child’s education is to teach them about enterprise and the opportunities of entrepreneurship. I will be interested in the Minister’s comments.

Small business is the foundation of British business. The Government’s long-term economic plan provides the right conditions for small businesses. What we have to do is unlock the entrepreneur in all of us, so that we can see our economy thrive and do as well as we need it to in the future. I look forward to the Minister’s responses to my questions.

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[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that because it fits in with something I will say in a few moments about the Government’s role of ensuring that all businesses in a free market get a fair chance. His contribution was powerful in several ways and I look forward to returning to it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) reflected on the fact that small business owners often work incredibly long hours to keep the wheels of commerce turning, and he was right to point that out. He also said that they are often the last to be paid, both personally in terms of taking money out of the business, and often because they are way down the list of supplier payments. As he knows, the Labour party feels passionate about that, and there is a role for the Government to ensure that we do more to eradicate the scourge of late payment to small businesses.

The sense of excitement and anticipation my hon. Friend feels as he looks forward to small business Saturday positively crackled out of every word of his contribution. He demonstrated his wide-ranging—almost encyclopaedic—knowledge of the small businesses in Middlesbrough, and he particularly promoted the fabulous fashions available there. He did not let us know whether he was dressed in one of the latest of those fashions, but I suspect that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), who was here a moment ago, are examples of just some of the fashions available on the Middlesbrough high street, and what fine examples they are too.

The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) paid tribute to the businesses that go the extra mile. He made an incredibly important point about the contribution businesses often make to the vibrancy of the high street and the community by supporting initiatives, either with local authorities or as part of the business community, and business improvement districts have been important contributors in that respect. It is important that everyone gets together to make sure our high street has a vibrant offer.

Many hon. Members reflected on the progress that has been made on woman entrepreneurs and on their importance, and that is an incredibly important issue. One of the key challenges the country continues to face is how to develop women’s entrepreneurial potential further, particularly after they have had children. We continue to do less well than we could, because of the impact of child care costs and the fact that we are a time-poor society in many ways. Broadband is important, because women entrepreneurs often want to run businesses from home. There are therefore a huge number of challenges the Government should look to take up, and it is great that Members have reflected on the importance of the issue.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman has reflected on the importance of child care, particularly for women entrepreneurs. I therefore hope that he will welcome the tax break that the Government have, for the first time, given the self-employed in relation to child care. Surely that is an important step in the right direction, and I hope that he will support it.

[Toby Perkins]

I absolutely do. The right hon. Lady may be aware that the proposal first featured in Labour’s small business taskforce report, and we are pleased that the Government have brought it forward. Whoever’s idea it is, the fact that good ideas are followed up is positive.

The right hon. Lady is right to focus on child care. She and many other people across the House will look forward to the day when child care is not seen as just a women’s issue, but it remains one of the barriers that women entrepreneurs face. I am therefore pleased that the Labour party has made a commitment to increase the level of free child care to 25 hours a week. We have seen some positive steps under this Government, notwithstanding our concerns about the increase in costs in the sector. However, I entirely agree with the right hon. Lady.

I also enjoyed the right hon. Lady’s earlier contribution, in which she paid tribute to the Federation of Small Businesses. She also gave us an evocative historical tour of her constituency. She was right to say that small businesses are an important part of the history of our town centres, and we want them to be a part of their futures as well. That is what this debate and small business Saturday are all about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) spoke about the extent to which small businesses can make an impression on the national, as well as the local, stage. She also mentioned the importance of the relationship between our public services and local authorities and our small businesses.

One thing that has come across in the debate is how widespread support is on this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough spoke about some of the work he has done in his constituency. I did a little research before the debate to find out what happened last year, and I was amazed by the different contributions people told me they had made. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) wrote to local small businesses and to business groups such as the local chamber of commerce to encourage them to participate in the festivities. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) spent the first small business Saturday on the high street in the Horwich area of her constituency interacting with people and promoting the small businesses there. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) did her Christmas shopping at the Wood street Christmas market on small business Saturday, combining important family duties with promoting the high street in a very practical way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) backed local festivals, including I Love Allerton Road and Loving Lodge Lane—there is a lot of love going on in Liverpool—to promote and support the small businesses that trade in those areas of her constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) publicised the free parking on offer in his constituency, to support the 100,000 people in the wider local authority area who are employed by small businesses. Finally, I had the opportunity to visit 25 different small businesses right across Chesterfield and Staveley—I should stress that I am not being competitive—and I have photos of me at all of them on the wall of my constituency office.

I was also delighted to see that local authorities of all colours have been backing small business Saturday in their own way. Brent has a campaign called “Think Brent, Celebrate Local”. In Stockton, the local council has opened the Enterprise Arcade, with 13 new businesses testing out their retail ideas ahead of small business Saturday. Ashfield district council is one of many local authorities that will be supporting small business Saturday by offering free car parking. Waltham Forest is running its “Hidden Gems” campaign, which fits in with what I was talking about a moment ago. It encourages people to get off the beaten track slightly. The council has showcased a map giving independent retailers, cafés and bars an opportunity to promote themselves in their local community. Derby city council is hosting an event that will showcase a wide variety of support for small businesses and provide networking opportunities.

Community campaigners up and down the country got in touch to talk about what they were doing. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough reflected on what was happening in Stockton and Louise Baldock’s contribution. In Harlow, Suzy Stride worked to promote small business Saturday by visiting a local “mumtrepeneurs” group promoting the message about female business owners that we have just reflected on. Mari Williams led a small business Saturday in Whitchurch, working with the local community and trader association, and more than 50 businesses took part. Lynette Kelly in Leamington set up a business consultation event at the Lamats hardware store in Regent place on her patch. Andrew Pakes in Milton Keynes worked with the local council to provide high street information packs. Catherine Atkinson ran a “Shop Local” campaign in Ilkeston and Long Eaton. Right across the country, people from across the business community and the political scene, as well as community campaigners, worked together to see what they could do on that one day to promote small businesses. That provides a really powerful recognition of the importance of small businesses and small business Saturday.

The hon. Member for City of Chester spoke about wanting to be positive, and that is absolutely right. We need to say what we in this place can positively do, and we need to think about what the small business community might ask of us in relation to small business Saturday. However, we should also make sure that supporting small businesses is something we do not just for Christmas, but every day of the year.

There are a number of things a future Labour Government should aim to do. The first, which we have had a lot of focus on in the debate, relates to business rates. Labour has a specific proposal to reduce business rates in its first year in government. That would be paid for by not taking forward the final 1% of the planned corporation tax cut and, instead, ploughing all that money into supporting the 1.5 million small firms with a rateable value under £50,000. That would be a really significant step, which would reduce business rates in the first year and freeze them in the second year. That is not a discount approach, and there would not be an underlying rate that is going up all the time, with a discount being offered, as we are seeing currently; there would actually be a real cut and then a freeze. We also have a proposal to freeze energy bills. Energy is one of the highest costs that small businesses pay, and our proposal would save the average small business £1,800.

The banking system was mentioned. Small businesses consistently say that limited access to finance is the biggest barrier to their growth; 89% of UK small businesses are locked into the five big banks for banking facilities, and we are committed to a more competitive banking system. Hon. Members reflected on Nick Tott’s suggestion in 2011 of a British business bank. We are delighted that the Government’s British business bank is morphing more into what we originally suggested, but we think that we can go much further with that—in addition to a generation of new local banks.

A primary child care guarantee would give all parents of primary schoolchildren guaranteed access to child care through their school, from 8 am to 6 pm—we have heard about the need to offer more free child care to nursery age children. We recognise that that would be incredibly important to small businesses.

We are concerned that the privatisation of Royal Mail threatens the universal service obligation. We will campaign to ensure that, under a Labour Government, it will remain.

Late payments mean that small businesses do not get money they are entitled to; 2,500 businesses a year go bust because they have not been paid the money they are owed. The proposals that we have made in debates on the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill to put the onus on customers to pay on time, rather than on small businesses to report them, will be taken forward in the Labour party manifesto. Those proposals have won support from the small business community, including from the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Business. Working with councils and the high street, a future Government will be able to make a positive offer on various aspects of skills, which will make a real difference.

I want to repeat my congratulations to the hon. Member for City of Chester and all those who spoke in the debate, and I have a few questions for the Minister. First, we have heard about what action people are taking to support small businesses, and to support and promote small business Saturday. The fact that it is a bottom-up development is valuable, but a quarter of a mile from us in Victoria street there is a huge amount of resource, and it would be interesting to know what contribution the Government have made to supporting the day.

The autumn statement highlighted the fact that consumer debt is fast approaching a record level. Is the Minister concerned about that? Does he think it might affect future high street growth? He will know that the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted in relation to the autumn statement that consumer debt will be higher in the next two years than it was at its pre-recession peak. There is a sense that much high street growth is fuelled by consumer debt.

I am interested in what the Minister may say about balance, in the context of giving communities a say about the make-up of their high street. Often a lack of attention to planning commitment in a high street has led to action that is good in the short term but destroys the look of the town centre in the long term. We need to support town centres through transition periods. Does the Minister think the balance is right, at the moment, between the need for local authorities and communities to have a say about what happens in the high street, and the need for planning to provide opportunities for those with entrepreneurial or innovative development ideas? I have a sense that the Government see planning as a barrier to growth; what do they propose to do in support of getting the right balance in high streets between reflecting history and not preventing reasonable, sympathetic growth?

I look forward to the Minister’s responses, and I have enjoyed winding up an incredibly constructive debate.