Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con) [V]]

Just two weeks ago, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee published its report “The impact of Coronavirus on businesses and workers”, which acknowledges the pace and unprecedented scale of the measures that the Government have introduced and how

“this support has kept vast numbers of businesses and workers afloat during this exceptionally challenging time.”

Last week’s Budget continues that work.

The Chancellor has recognised the need for businesses to continue to have certainty and for jobs to continue to be protected. I welcome the decision to extend the furlough scheme for an additional six months. It has already protected 6,500 jobs in my Rugby and Bulkington constituency. I also welcome the further round of grants to help businesses as they reopen, and the extra support targeted at the leisure, hospitality, arts and culture sectors.

I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State refer to Coventry city of culture, which starts in May, and the rugby league world cup, with matches at the Ricoh stadium in Coventry—events close to my constituency that indicate that we are getting back to normal times. It is not just those sectors themselves that have gone through a tough time; the suppliers to them have, too. Those events coming forward will enable them to re-establish themselves and get the economy moving.

I want to focus on one key measure for business—Help to Grow, which will make a huge difference to the performance of small and medium-sized businesses up and down the country. The BEIS Committee in the last Parliament looked at this issue, and we concluded that the myriad sources of support for SMEs made it difficult to navigate. In particular, we were concerned that business owners and managers did not know where to go to improve their own skills. We noted that businesses grew faster when managers took time out to work on their business as well as in their business. Help to Grow will offer 30,000 leaders and managers a training programme over 12 weeks at a cost to attend of just £750 after Government support. As someone who ran a small business before arriving here and did not know where to go for personal development training, I can see immediately how valuable this scheme will be.

I hope that the scheme will cover the business skill of sales. It is not the most obvious issue to raise, but on a day when we learn that export sales fell last year by 14.7%, equivalent to £54 billion, we will need to make certain that, as a country, we get every single sale we can. The all-party parliamentary group for professional sales is launching a report tomorrow, which calls for a selling revolution to make sales a career aspiration for the brightest and best, and to ensure that first-class training in sales skills is available for both before and throughout a salesperson’s working life. Effective sales negotiations, with the measures that the Chancellor has given, will enable businesses to trade our way back to prosperity.