I echo the Minister’s thanks to everyone who has contributed to the surprising and interesting passage of this Bill. I thank my shadow ministerial colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) and for Hartlepool (Mr Wright),
and all the other members on our team who have contributed to the valuable scrutiny of some very important measures. The Bill posed a number of questions and challenges for the Government, and I look forward to investigating and exploring the extent to which they have been delivered.
I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), for her work—the Minister did not get the opportunity to thank her in his contribution—and all the other Members who contributed to an interesting Committee stage.
When we first saw this Bill, it was our strong belief that it was jammed full of missed opportunities. It confronted many of the big questions that people in our constituencies raise. I am talking here about late payments, zero-hours contracts, minimum wage, insolvency and how our insolvency regimes works, and how we can provide more support to parents in the form of child care. It also addressed this key question of the relationship between pub companies and their tenants, and the Government’s role in all of that.
On Second Reading, I said that this House had the chance to pass a small business Bill that did not miss out on many of those key opportunities, and I must say now that we did rather better than I expected, especially on the subject of pub companies. We can be satisfied that, as a Committee, we made progress in some of those areas. What we need is not sound bites on our long-term economic plan, but a Government who deliver on that plan and support a skills-based economy in which people go to work knowing that they can afford to pay their bills at the end of the working week. We want real investment in high quality apprenticeships and good relationships between businesses in which we can all have confidence. I am talking there about the thorny subject of late payments and the relationship between pub companies and their tenants. This Bill leaves this House having missed out on a whole score of opportunities, but it is none the less stronger than it was at the outset, so the Committee and indeed the whole House must take great credit for that.
Labour has demonstrated real leadership in supporting small businesses through the course of this Bill. The fact that the Government agreed with the spirit behind many of our amendments, but not the specific wording, suggests that we were indeed on the right lines. I am glad that we managed to secure some concessions from the Government in a few of those areas, and the Bill is much the stronger for it.