Small Business Saturday

Debate between Toby Perkins and Andrew Bingham

Thursday 4th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Thank you for that advice, Mr Hollobone. I will take both parts of it seriously. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, for what I believe is the first time.

I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) on securing what has been an excellent and timely debate about small business Saturday. The debate has ranged over a variety of issues, but has had at its heart a recognition of the exciting opportunity the day brings. For Members across the House to have a chance to speak about the importance of small businesses and of small business Saturday just two days before the event is very welcome.

[Jim Sheridan in the Chair]

Today the small business Saturday bus tour reaches its conclusion, as it visits Camden. Last year, memorably, it drove up Downing street and was given a prominent and welcome salute. Whether moving from Westminster to Camden is going up in the world or down is a matter of opinion—I will let individual Members make up their own mind on that—but the tour has been very successful, going out into communities to let businesses know what they can do to promote the day, and ensuring that people know it is happening and that they have an opportunity to support it.

Many hon. Members have been on the bus when it has visited their constituency. It has made 14 visits over the past three weeks. I was there for the tour’s launch in Leeds on 17 November, and very impressive it was, too. I was delighted when on 24 November it came to Chesterfield and I had the opportunity to promote what small business Saturday is all about in my own constituency. The bus tour has been right around the country, to Leeds, York, Edinburgh, Belfast, Manchester, Nottingham, Norwich, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Plymouth, Lambeth and Camden, as well as to Chesterfield, and has been well saluted. Anyone who has been on it and had the opportunity to see people’s response will have a sense of how strongly people in our communities feel about how important small businesses are, a feeling that has been reflected in the debate.

Small business Saturday in 2013 was a massive success. It drove hundreds of millions of pounds of extra trade to British small businesses and 48% of UK consumers were aware of the day. The hon. Member for City of Chester said there were 1.5 million Facebook views and that #SmallBizSatUK was trending in the top three on Twitter all day. Some 40% of all local authorities supported the campaign and hundreds of events took place across the UK. It was probably the biggest celebration of small businesses the UK has ever seen.

The hon. Gentleman was generous in his recognition of the role of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) and the fact that this event has been taken up right across the political sphere. It is another example of what happens when everyone in Britain gets together in support of Labour party ideas. It shows what can be achieved, and he was generous in reflecting that. It is right to recognise that wherever the idea started, the most important thing is that it is being supported universally. It also demonstrates what can be achieved in these straitened times without necessarily having a big pot of Government money. Innovative ideas are often what matter, and campaigns that start from the bottom up are incredibly powerful. That was good.

I want to reflect on some of the contributions to this excellent debate. The hon. Gentleman was right to emphasise the importance of small business Saturday. We often think of it in the context of retail and shopping, but it is about much more than that and his comments reflected that. If anyone thought of small business Saturday purely in the context of retail, the fact that a funeral director won the award in his constituency may have removed that misapprehension. The hon. Gentleman made a great speech and I was pleased to hear it and to take up some of the challenges he offered.

The hon. Gentleman listed measures that he thought were positive and then said he did not want a party political debate. He might have hoped for a little too much there, but his point about business rates is incredibly important. He asked me whether the Labour party supports the Government’s aims for the review of business rates. I am not entirely clear what those aims are, but the fact there will be a review is positive. Increasingly in the last few years, the level of business rates has been seen as punitive. We have the highest level of corporate property tax in the G20, corresponding with the lowest level of corporation tax in the G7. We have said we want to maintain the lowest level of corporation tax, but a focus on constantly reducing profit tax and having ever spiralling corporate property tax encourages an economy in which businesses bring their books to the UK, but do not bring their jobs and manufacturing or a presence on the high street. I totally support a review of business rates, but whether I support what the Government want that review to find, I am thus far unable to enlighten the hon. Gentleman, because I am not entirely clear what their aims are. I certainly welcome the fact that there will be a significant debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) made a wide-ranging speech focusing on the importance of a small business administration at the heart of Government. He will be pleased to know that a future Labour Government will want to introduce that, in recognition of the need for Departments throughout Whitehall to work together to support businesses, particularly small businesses. He also focused on procurement, which is an area where the Government could do much more to support small businesses. That point was echoed by other hon. Members.

My hon. Friend also spoke about the universal broadband commitment. In my time in my present role, I have been to 45 areas of the country doing small business consultations, and at almost every one broadband access was raised. A few days ago, at a lunch with the Rural Shops Alliance focused on the needs of rural businesses, the alliance spoke strongly about the importance of a more universal offer on broadband.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) reflected on the many different roles that a small business owner has. I tried to combine those with being a parliamentary candidate so I know how difficult it is.

[Andrew Bingham]

indicated assent.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman is indicating that he did the same. It was no easy task. In what he described as an evangelical contribution, he highlighted the importance of support for business owners, who often have brilliant business ideas but do not instantly have the different knowledge bases needed. The Government should take some responsibility for supporting access to skills development, so that small businesses are not shut out of Government contracts because they cannot find their way through complicated procurement processes. We must ensure they have access to apprenticeships and Government schemes such as funding for lending. There are pieces of knowledge that are found in big businesses, but not when someone starts a small business. Providing such support for small businesses is incredibly important.

The hon. Gentleman argued that we should make every day a small business day, and won support from other hon. Members. That was an interesting idea. He and I are former small business owners, and all small business owners I speak to do not want special favours or expect people to shop with them as a favour. All they want is a fair chance for people to consider what they have to offer and whether it is worth buying from them, taking a step off the beaten track and looking down some of the small arcades where many of those businesses are located.

Small business Saturday is not about saying that big businesses are bad, or suggesting that we do not need to support all our retailers. We are not in any way demeaning the contribution that big businesses make. What it says is that on one day every year, let us all take a bit of extra time to look at the hidden gems on our high streets or just off them. When we have visited them and perhaps spent money with them, we may return to them naturally because we found things that we did not know were out there. To my mind, that is what small business Saturday is all about.

[Andrew Bingham]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Our business did not want or expect special favours; we just wanted a fair chance to ask people to look at the product, to look at the price and to give us a fair crack of the whip. We just wanted an even playing field and a fair chance to compete with the big boys.

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that because it fits in with something I will say in a few moments about the Government’s role of ensuring that all businesses in a free market get a fair chance. His contribution was powerful in several ways and I look forward to returning to it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) reflected on the fact that small business owners often work incredibly long hours to keep the wheels of commerce turning, and he was right to point that out. He also said that they are often the last to be paid, both personally in terms of taking money out of the business, and often because they are way down the list of supplier payments. As he knows, the Labour party feels passionate about that, and there is a role for the Government to ensure that we do more to eradicate the scourge of late payment to small businesses.

The sense of excitement and anticipation my hon. Friend feels as he looks forward to small business Saturday positively crackled out of every word of his contribution. He demonstrated his wide-ranging—almost encyclopaedic—knowledge of the small businesses in Middlesbrough, and he particularly promoted the fabulous fashions available there. He did not let us know whether he was dressed in one of the latest of those fashions, but I suspect that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), who was here a moment ago, are examples of just some of the fashions available on the Middlesbrough high street, and what fine examples they are too.

The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) paid tribute to the businesses that go the extra mile. He made an incredibly important point about the contribution businesses often make to the vibrancy of the high street and the community by supporting initiatives, either with local authorities or as part of the business community, and business improvement districts have been important contributors in that respect. It is important that everyone gets together to make sure our high street has a vibrant offer.

Many hon. Members reflected on the progress that has been made on woman entrepreneurs and on their importance, and that is an incredibly important issue. One of the key challenges the country continues to face is how to develop women’s entrepreneurial potential further, particularly after they have had children. We continue to do less well than we could, because of the impact of child care costs and the fact that we are a time-poor society in many ways. Broadband is important, because women entrepreneurs often want to run businesses from home. There are therefore a huge number of challenges the Government should look to take up, and it is great that Members have reflected on the importance of the issue.