Finance Bill

I feel that I should apologise for repeating myself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although I do not seem to be the only Member in the Chamber who is guilty of doing so. No small business wants regulation. Small businesses just want to get their products or services right, but regulation—whether environmental, labour or tax—is something they just have to put up with. In big companies, experts earning handsome salaries deal with all those things—I have sometimes been a beneficiary of those services in the past. There is a completely different environment for such companies, and that fact will not change. That is not the political argument about whether the Finance Bill is appropriate, because small businesses will always feel the same about regulation. The test is whether the regulations that are being prepared—for example, on freelance workers—are fair. It is legitimate to argue about that, but whether or not such regulations are fair or appropriate will not make much difference to the viability of those workers. A subcontractor in the software industry may have an easy time under a particular regulatory regime, and if it changes they just have to adapt, but keeping their skills up to date will very much determine whether they have a job—self-employed or working for an employer. That is the key issue for freelance workers, just as it is for small businesses. Before I allow myself the luxury of intervening on other Members, I want to make a point about regional policy. We need to re-think regional policy, to consider what we need to do to bring about greater opportunity for regions, including mine—the north-east of England—which have not been as successful in the past in purely economic terms. That is not to say that the way of life in those regions is not desirable, which is a separate issue—[Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie) is nodding; the situation is the same in parts of Scotland. Regional policy used to be about persuading people with money to invest to go to Scotland, the north-east or Northern Ireland rather than locating in the over-heated areas of the south of England. Then regional policy was about encouraging external investors to invest in the regions rather than in an overcrowded area. Both those policies were right at the time, but that is not what regional policy is now about. Regional policy is now about getting small companies—on behalf of their industry, their skills and their regions—to upgrade themselves so that they can compete globally. For example, it is important that the management consultancy companies based in the north-east of England upgrade themselves in a way that allows them to compete internationally. The same is true of the finance industry in Edinburgh. Upgrading design, creative and management sciences and engineering and back-up skills is as crucial in regional policy as all the other things, such as making the right infrastructure available. Such upgrading can generate huge incomes that can lift regional economies.