Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is dead right about that and he anticipates my next paragraph. We have also strengthened measures to support prompt payment, acting both to increase transparency, so that when companies do not pay on time that is made clear, and to strengthen public sector prompt payment so that the sector can lead by example. I am grateful for that intervention.

We have also included a new clause on home businesses to remove the incentive, dating from a very old Act of Parliament, for landlords to prohibit tenants from operating a business from home. Home businesses are the hotbed of enterprise; 70% of new businesses are started at home, and we want to make it easier for that to happen. We have also strengthened support for the early-years pupil premium to help three and four-year-olds from less well-off backgrounds by amending the Bill to enable Departments to disclose to local authorities information on eligibility, while ensuring that unlawful disclosure of such data continues to be an offence.

Questions were raised in Committee about the scrutiny of complaints handling procedures in the financial services sector, so we have introduced a measure to require the independent complaints commissioners to produce an annual assessment of complaints handling. That will ensure that processes are fair and accessible to all complainants, including small business.

Finally, on pubs, the Government have listened and responded to the concerns about the burdens the measures would place on family brewers and removed these smaller companies from the scope of the code during the passage of the Bill. Yesterday, we saw the House express its will, and we will reflect on that vote during the Bill’s further passage.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Is the Minister not being a little disingenuous to suggest that the Government have listened to what the Committee said, because they voted against the Committee on the family brewers issue and indeed yesterday they tabled another amendment to try to defeat the will of the House on that matter? Is not the truth that the Government have realised this is a battle they cannot win and they have given in?

[Matthew Hancock]

No. As the hon. Gentleman knows, no amendments were moved yesterday on family brewers. We will reflect on the vote on the larger pubcos and the mandatory free-of-tie option as the Bill continues its passage in the other place.

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[Toby Perkins]

I echo the Minister’s thanks to everyone who has contributed to the surprising and interesting passage of this Bill. I thank my shadow ministerial colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) and for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), and all the other members on our team who have contributed to the valuable scrutiny of some very important measures. The Bill posed a number of questions and challenges for the Government, and I look forward to investigating and exploring the extent to which they have been delivered.

I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), for her work—the Minister did not get the opportunity to thank her in his contribution—and all the other Members who contributed to an interesting Committee stage.

When we first saw this Bill, it was our strong belief that it was jammed full of missed opportunities. It confronted many of the big questions that people in our constituencies raise. I am talking here about late payments, zero-hours contracts, the minimum wage, insolvency and how our insolvency regimes works, and how we can provide more support to parents in the form of child care. It also addressed this key question of the relationship between pub companies and their tenants, and the Government’s role in all that.

On Second Reading, I said that this House had the chance to pass a small business Bill that did not miss out on many of those key opportunities, and I must say now that we did rather better than I expected, especially on the subject of pub companies. We can be satisfied that, as a Committee, we made progress in some of those areas. What we need is not soundbites on a long-term economic plan, but a Government who deliver on that plan and support a skills-based economy in which people go to work knowing that they can afford to pay their bills at the end of the working week. We want real investment in high-quality apprenticeships and good relationships between businesses in which we can all have confidence. I am talking there about the thorny subject of late payments and the relationship between pub companies and their tenants. This Bill leaves this House having missed out on a whole score of opportunities, but it is none the less stronger than it was at the outset, so the Committee and indeed the whole House must take great credit for that.

Labour has demonstrated real leadership in supporting small businesses through the course of this Bill. The fact that the Government agreed with the spirit behind many of our amendments, but not the specific wording, suggests that we were indeed on the right lines. I am glad that we managed to secure some concessions from the Government in a few of those areas, and the Bill is much the stronger for it.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that the test of this Bill will be in its implementation. We want to see what happens with things such as low pay and zero-hours contracts. We hear fine words in the House, but it is what happens out there that is important, because there is a great deal of insecurity at the moment.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right. Let me take this opportunity to say that he is a fine MP, and I know that because he is my father’s MP. My father speaks very warmly about his contribution. The last point my hon. Friend made was typical of him. He is speaking up for a city, with a varied post-industrial economy and a proud manufacturing history. Its university is one of the most important in the country, and a massive employer in his constituency.

[Mr Cunningham]

I thank my hon. Friend for paying such a compliment to Coventry. In the last recession, during the Thatcher years, we lost thousands of jobs in the motor car trade. We learned a lesson from that, because we diversified. More importantly though, we still have the development centre for Jaguar Land Rover and the university technical college, which is due to take off any day now.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to trumpet the manufacturing excellence of his city and Jaguar Land Rover. We are delighted that Mike Wright from JLR is producing a review for the Labour party, as he is a much-respected figure. For our economy to work in the long term, it is incredibly important that we have a real skill base. I am glad that my hon. Friend raised that point. I am also pleased that he talked about the lessons that we learned from the industrial vandalism of the 1970s which that had appalling consequences for his city. None of us will forget the song “Ghost Town” that was written by the Coventry band The Specials. It reflected precisely that sense of desolation when industries disappeared. He is right to say that the city has learned lessons from that. To repay the debt, we must ensure that we never make the same mistakes again, which is why Labour is coming forward with an economic strategy that is based on skill and on competing with high-wage and successful world economies. We are not even attempting to be part of this race to the bottom or to scrap with the developing world on who can be the cheapest employer. What we are saying is that we need to look again at the way that our economy works.

[Mr Cunningham]

Interestingly, when Coventry city council joined with the university of Warwick to set up a business park, we were heavily criticised by the then Conservative Government. Two years down the road, it is clear that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Creating business parks was the way to go, and we did it in Coventry.

[Toby Perkins]

I could not agree more. That is an example of how Government and industry can work together to build the high-skill, high-wage economy that we want, which is in stark contrast to the kind of economy that has developed under this Government. My parents worked at Warwick university, and if we compare the size of that university in the ’70s, when I first came to the area, with its size today, we see the real difference that investment can make.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees that the advances in apprenticeships and high-tech skills that the coalition Government are delivering represent progress from the previous 15 or 20 years. The number of apprentices is approaching 2 million, and many companies in the aerospace, automotive and oil sectors have jumped on the fact that we need such skills to be delivered. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that progress has been made, or is he still thinking back to the days of Thatcher 30 years ago?

[Toby Perkins]

I accept that some progress has been made. There was a real rebirth in apprenticeships over the second half of the previous Government’s time in office and the current Government have said a lot about apprenticeships. However, I was disappointed that they did not support our amendments on apprenticeships, and people will feel short-changed because the Bill represented a real opportunity for the Government to take substantive steps on apprenticeships.

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that many employers recognise the importance and value of apprenticeships. However, the number of under-19 apprenticeships is falling, and there has been a big increase in the rebadging of programmes that were previously known as back-to-work schemes as apprenticeships. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mind me saying that he was the oldest new Member of the 2010 generation. Older workers are incredibly important, as is demonstrated by the vigour with which he performs his tasks, and no one would describe him as an apprentice, but many older workers with a huge amount to offer our economy are being classified as though they are apprentices.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The hon. Gentleman talked about the need to tackle the problem of low-wage jobs. Today’s report by the Office for National Statistics indicates that workers in Wales earn an average of £473.40 a week, whereas the UK average is £518 and the London average is £660.50. How would a future Labour Government tackle that wage inequality?

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I am glad that Members can cite important statistics by the ONS in the Chamber, given the importance of our having statistical accuracy which we have heard about.

On the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, we have a commitment on the living wage for businesses involved in major Government contracts, as well as to increasing the minimum wage to £8 by 2020. We also have a broader commitment to a skills-based economy in which we can create jobs that deliver wages that people can live on, as ultimately that is what will make the biggest difference to increasing wages, rather than the use of Government regulation as a silver bullet.

The small business community took pleasure from the arrival of a small business Bill. We give the Government credit for bringing forward a Bill with the words “Small Business” in its title, as such businesses have been overlooked in recent years. However, sadly, the opportunity to include in the Bill many of the measures that we proposed to benefit small business has passed us by. Provision on late payments is a classic example, as the Government had a real opportunity to support a late payment plan that would ensure that the onus to pursue payment—eventually through the courts, but initially through invoicing—was removed from small businesses that are owed money. Despite the sensible evidence that the Committee heard from the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), among others, about why small businesses do not pursue their big business customers, the Government did not support our measure, which was backed by the Forum of Private Business and the Federation of Small Businesses, and would have been a significant step forward. However, on a more positive note, the Government talked yesterday about how they could strengthen the prompt payment code and ensure that businesses with payment terms of longer than 60 days would not be considered to be prompt payers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) considers giving way, I must point out to him that this is an extremely short debate, that he has had plenty of time to speak over the past two days, that many Members in the Chamber have not spoken on the Bill at all in those two days, and that he has spoken for longer than the Minister. However, I leave it up to the hon. Gentleman; he has the floor.

[Toby Perkins]

Of course I take your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall attempt to crack on but, as we said yesterday, the programme order gives us a pathetically short period of time to debate the Bill.

[Matthew Hancock]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

I shall give way in a moment.

Indeed, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) tabled amendments, but he did not even have the opportunity—

[Matthew Hancock]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

I can see you, but I am saying something at the moment. The hon. Member for Huntingdon wished to move an amendment—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. This is not the moment for discussing the programme order. We have very little time left in which to consider this important Bill, and the hon. Gentleman must stick to his Third Reading points—briefly.

[Toby Perkins]

I think that that rather makes my point, Madam Deputy Speaker.

At the start of the Bill’s passage, our objectives were clear—[Interruption.] The Minister for Business and Enterprise is getting angry now. I appreciate that he has had a pretty difficult couple of days, but he should have been apologising last night not to the Prime Minister, but to all the publicans he was trying to get in the way of and all the people he has let down. He turned up late to the start of the Bill’s proceedings in Committee and its passage has been a shambles. If this is his Churchillian way of taking measures through Parliament, he should have spent a little more time at the knee of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he might have learned a little more.

[Matthew Hancock]

You are an embarrassment.

[Toby Perkins]

Frankly, the right hon. Gentleman is the one who ought to be a bit embarrassed.

Let me continue by talking about pub companies. The right hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber for much of yesterday’s debate, but had he been, he would have realised why we were able to convince people that the Government’s proposals on pub companies did not go nearly far enough and that real change was needed. It is a matter of tremendous pride that we were able to convince hon. Members on both sides of the House to express their will in support of the market rent only option. The Minister’s attitude and the approach that he is taking demonstrate how the Government have lost all the arguments on that. I am glad to see that they are not going to try to bring the family brewers back into the scope of the measure, even though he is wrong to say that no amendment was withdrawn yesterday. A series of amendments were withdrawn yesterday that would have attempted to bring the family brewers back in. I hope he reflects carefully before attempting to change in another place something that was the will of this House.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

On a slightly different note, I wanted to raise one factor that was highlighted to me. There has not been one speech or one single contribution from a Scottish nationalist during the entire—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. That is not a point for Third Reading. I asked the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) to be brief because there are people who have had no chance to speak in this debate. I trust that what the Chair says will be listened to.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) was making an important point, but I accept your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We have come to the end of the Bill. We look forward to it coming back here. It has been strengthened in respect of prompt payment and includes the market rent only option and a pubs code that the industry has demanded for many years, but we have not seen serious action on zero hours. We have seen a Government at the fag-end of their time in power doing the least they could on the question of zero hours, which shows their lack of commitment to dealing with the issue. None the less, the Bill leaves Report stronger than it arrived, and the House should be very proud of that.