Self-Employment

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I will speak for two minutes, and I will probably speak very quickly so that more colleagues can get in. I congratulate those who secured the debate on the excellent way in which they opened it.

I would like to talk about enabling self-employment from the point of view of groups of people who find it difficult to engage with the workplace. These are not necessarily people who would go on to set up a business of their own. One such group is people living with disabilities that make it difficult for them to leave home. Another is women who would like to balance employment with caring responsibilities for children, an elderly relative or perhaps somebody with disabilities. I am really talking about people being self-employed as home workers.

I would like to share with Members the story of a really successful organisation I have been working with over the past 12 months. It enables call centres to be in-sourced back to this country by creating a network of call centre operators based in their own homes. The Government are investing a great deal of money in superfast broadband, and we are definitely benefiting from that in Cornwall. The networks I am talking about would be a good way of utilising that investment to encourage people who are probably not in a workplace now to get training and to become self-employed as call centre operators from their homes.

In America, such an initiative was set up a couple of years ago. It was specifically targeted at getting people off welfare and into work. Globally, the company to which I am referring and which invested in the technology employs more than 22,000 people. It set up in the UK just 12 months ago. It employs 1,500 people and is taking on 2,000 this year. Companies such as Littlewoods and many well known holiday organisations are involved.

With a concerted effort, all of us as Members of Parliament can promote what I have described. I would also like my hon. Friend the Minister to consider something that President Obama is considering this week. I am talking about giving tax incentives to the very big employers, the very big national companies, such as BT, that are outsourcing their call centres throughout the world to repatriate those jobs to the UK—to in-source them back to the UK. Barack Obama is considering giving financial incentives to companies through the taxation system—a financial incentive for every job that they bring back to America. I would like the Minister to examine what is being done in America to see whether we can do the same to repatriate what would be tens of thousands of jobs to these shores and enable people who are finding it difficult to fit into the workplace—such as people with disabilities and people with caring responsibilities—to be self-employed.