SMEs (South of England)

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this timely and important debate, which I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) on securing. It is also a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter.

Like other hon. Members, I confess that I have a business background. It is perhaps slightly ironic that in 2005, the year of the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes, I was the first firework manufacturer to be elected to this place. Even now, when I wander into Parliament on 5 November, the temptation to blow the place up is still there! So far, I have managed to resist it.

We have had a tour of the south of England this morning—from southerly constituencies, to Milton Keynes North, which is the most northerly seat in the south-east region. Small business is big business in my constituency. On average, five businesses move into or expand in Milton Keynes each month. Some 72% of our companies began in the city. Milton Keynes is the city of start-ups and, in 2010, the Centre for Cities outlook report said that it had the third highest number of business births in the country. We may also be considered the headquarters of headquarters. We are home to the national bases of Volkswagen, Argos, Marshall Amplification, Mercedes-Benz and, imminently, Network Rail.

However, many of the 10,000 businesses in the new city are small and medium-sized enterprises. Many of the business men and women I have met welcomed the excellent measures introduced over the past year by the coalition Government—for example, small business rate relief, which other hon. Members have mentioned. Although I certainly support the national insurance holiday, it seems slightly arbitrary that, as we have heard this morning, it is too often decided on a regional basis. There are centres of deprivation across the south, and Milton Keynes is no different. Some of my wards are the most deprived areas in south-east England.

My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) made a point about being able to secure credit as a small business. That remains a major problem. Although I know that the Government are keen to act in that area, we simply must do more because, unless small businesses can secure credit, I fear that their future is bleak.

Business owners are particularly keen on the introduction of local enterprise partnerships. Milton Keynes is part of the South East Midlands LEP. Geographically, that stretches from Luton to Corby, with Milton Keynes being the centre of gravity. It has been very much welcomed that the wealth creators and the innovators will determine the direction of our regions rather than having publicly funded, faceless bureaucrats driving regional funding.

However, some people have found it strange that the funds for starting up the LEPs have been solely allocated to the chambers of commerce. Concerns were raised in a letter to The Daily Telegraph about the decision of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to allocate the £300,000 grant to that national network alone. Although the chambers of commerce are excellent—in my constituency, the chamber of commerce is a lynchpin of business activity—they are not the only bodies representing business. There is also the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Businesses, national wings of which wrote the letter to The Daily Telegraph back in April. In particular, our local Federation of Small Businesses is a strong voice. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Brian White, who leads that federation in Milton Keynes.

Collectively, small businesses in my constituency are big business, and they deserve a big voice in these matters. I would hate to think that, in coming up with such an excellent initiative, we are alienating anyone. Will the Minister look again at how we fund LEPs? It is important that we ensure that voices from the whole business community are heard and that we do not solely rely on a single channel when it comes to starting these very important partnerships.