I thank the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for his powerful speech in Committee. I strongly agree with his central thrust about the operation of
markets and what we have to do. There is a clear importance to the vibrancy and general benefit of very strong consumer-driven markets, and where we can get the asymmetries out of markets. That is something to be looked at in the general context of the Bill.
The noble Lord’s speech reminded me of research I read in relation to the Bill from the Brookings Institution, which talks about America, the custodian of great enterprise and small businesses. A piece of research indicated that although there were a number of innovative, high-tech businesses, there was an attrition of the traditional entrepreneurial culture of mom and pop businesses in America, and the measures they were going to have to introduce to try and deal with the problem. It strikes me that the problem we have with parts of the Bill is that, while it is hugely welcome and to the Government’s credit to have put it through and to be saying something specific about small businesses, the scope of ambition is a bit too narrow.
We have a huge challenge to encourage such businesses and this is a great opportunity to do so. Even in circumstances where it may not be possible—the drafting might be problematic, there may be synchronicities in policy, or all sorts of things—it is still important to maintain the sense of ambition, so that we can put into place now strategic anchors or even some of the exhortations or ambitions we have for small businesses in the future.
It is in that context that, while being hugely encouraged by the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I was a tad disappointed by the Minister’s response. It contained a lot of things that I believe are, bluntly, utterly bogus. I just do not buy the notion that the western economy is going to collapse because micro-businesses are going to be given this protection. I do not buy the impact story. It does not ring true to anyone in business and I cannot believe it was presented. It is just not right. It is not right to believe that we can accept that the chilling impact of these things is going to be the principal reason why businesses are going to suddenly not transact. We know, even from our discussions, that within the context of late payments it does not have the same impact. If the Government accept what we are suggesting on the definition of micro-business and on late payments, we will have sufficient velocity in the markets for the cash flows to be less distorting and more encouraging.
I was also disappointed that there did not seem to be any real change or progress, or much work done, between the Consumer Rights Bill and the current position, even to the point of talking about the context of the FSB’s research on regulators, which concerns some of the other measures we talked about on previous amendments—the consultations related to the Consumer Rights Bill and other things. It did not look at the context of trying to use these measures to encourage and trigger small businesses.
We say very clearly that this is not about big businesses being bad. I do not believe that big businesses are bad; they are very important for this country for all sorts of productive things. However, we have to try to ensure that we push the fundamental context of small businesses: the market dynamics, the enterprise and the entrepreneurialism in which they exist.
On the statistics that the Minister gave us about the number of small businesses and the number of people who they employ, I have to say: do the maths. Most of these people are consumers, who, when they try to buy something for themselves rather than in the context of their businesses, have an easier time or more rights. I do not think that that is sensible.
I must ask the Minister to reconsider, to rethink some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and some other things about what we can do to achieve greater outcomes for small businesses. We also ask her—at least for my benefit—to spend some time scrutinising some of the work that has taken place since the Consumer Rights Bill until now to try to get some sense that we have properly assessed this and done some work as to whether or not they should reject this amendment. On the basis that I know that she will do that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.