William Cash
Main Page: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Minister is aware that vast amounts of European legislation affect the workplace. He also knows of the Prime Minister’s promises on that matter before the last general election. Will the Minister confirm that we will not merely have a report on the outcome of Beecroft, which has much to commend it, but actually deal with the enormous amount of damage done to small and medium-sized businesses by excessive European legislation, which costs billions of pounds and a huge percentage of our gross domestic product? Will we have action and not just words?
Mr Prisk
I am delighted to confirm to my hon. Friend, who studies these matters very closely and is right that European legislation impinges on small businesses, that we have ensured that there will no longer be gold-plating of directives from Brussels. Just as importantly, we have secured the agreement of the European Commission that small businesses will now be exempted as a point of principle unless the Commission can show that they should not be. We need to make that work, and I hope I will have his support in ensuring that we do.