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Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The danger always is that because small and medium-sized businesses, which rely on these large organisations for their very lifeblood, do not want to end up in discussions about charging them interest and administration fees, they bite their lip and put up with it. That is why it falls to us and to the Government to make sure that such bodies in receipt of public funds pass the money on through their obligations, not through the businesses that are affected by trying to threaten them with interest or administration charges.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

It is important that I declare an interest in that I am not only a member of the FSB but have shareholdings in a business that I set up before I came here; people can read about that in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There are two key issues: first, companies can set up special vehicles that make sure that they will not be affected by such provisions; and secondly, people sometimes get scared about losing the contract and the money in the first place.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Absolutely; that is key. Small businesses are often fragile at best. They live hand to mouth. They do not, in the main, have huge cash reserves. They rely on the payments that are coming in to be able to pay their staff, pay their suppliers, and pay their bills. They are not big businesses’ banks, but that is how they are being used at the moment. The money is kept in the coffers of larger organisations, and that stifles the growth of the small end of our economy.