Equality Bill

I am grateful for that helpful intervention about the situation in Northern Ireland, which the hon. Gentleman knows far more about than I do. I fear that the Government place regulation upon regulation on businesses, whether big or small. The thing in the House that causes me the most despair is the attitude of many Members—particularly, but not exclusively, Labour Members—who start from the premise that every business, however big or small, is simply a licence to print money. They think that if the dead hand of the Government were not involved in every element of policy, every business would automatically do everything it could to be as bad an employer as possible and to stuff its customers at every opportunity. I despair because that shows such a lack of knowledge about how businesses work. In my experience, every successful business has two things in common: it looks after its customers and it looks after its colleagues at work. Similarly, every failed business has two things in common: it does not look after its customers and it does not look after its colleagues at work. Much of the nanny state regulation is not necessary because every good business and every business that is likely to succeed knows perfectly well that in order to succeed it needs to look after the people who work for it and the people who pay the bills as customers. I can say in all honesty that, of those two categories, the most important group to look after is the employees because they look after the customers.