I welcome the Bill and commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his opening speech. I was rather disappointed by the shadow Secretary of State’s lack of passion and belief in business. He seemed wedded to regulation and control and gave us rather a lawyer’s lecture. However, I enjoyed the passion in the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and I congratulate him on that.
Business, enterprise and enthusiasm are present across our country. Individuals and small and medium-sized businesses are willing and capable to take on the world and to succeed. I am sure that there is a real appetite to develop, promote and sell goods and services, not just to home demand but to Europe and beyond. All enterprises need help, however. They need the right economic conditions, the appropriate regulations, a trained and skilled work force, low taxation, a sympathetic and encouraging Government and, of course, hard work—together, I believe, with luck. We approach the Bill with those requirements and I am pleased that we have a Government who understand and support enterprise.
There are 4.5 million small businesses in the UK, so any improvement we can make to the system of regulation and inspection will have a wide-ranging impact and could be of real benefit to the economy as well as to businesses. The most competitive and successful nations have clear strategies to support business. They have lighter regulation, less interference, competitive tax regimes, banks that support them and employment laws that make it easy to hire people. During the last decade, we have lagged behind in some areas as the previous Government seemed uninterested in business and more interested in the public sector. In the past two years, this Government have made real progress. Corporation tax has been cut and there is a greater number of apprenticeship places and more financial assistance to support work-based learning. The red tape challenge campaign was launched so that we listen to businesses’ concerns about regulation. A national loan guarantee scheme has been introduced so that businesses can get access to the credit that they need either to survive or to grow, and young entrepreneurs are being supported with start-up finance.
Of course, much more needs to be done to help business, and the Bill will help dramatically with that. Regulations are a real problem, and over-regulation is a problem for small businesses particularly. According to research by the Federation of Small Businesses, 27% of businesses say that increased regulation created difficulties in expanding their business, and 33% said that regulation was the biggest potential obstacle to growth.
I regularly visit businesses in my constituency that work in different sectors, including manufacture, retail, child care and education. Since the last election, I have been pleased to meet representatives of companies such as the Kenton Group, an innovative network research and manufacturing firm in Crayford; the Kip McGrath education centre in Bexleyheath, which provides extra learning support for children; and Pulp Friction in Erith, a growing firm of paper recyclers with depots across the country. Those firms are working hard to develop products and services that people want and need, and to generate wealth and prosperity. However, I remain concerned about the number of complaints that I regularly receive about the regulation and unnecessary bureaucracy that firms have to deal with and that take them away from more crucial tasks.