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10.12 am
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): I apologise to the House for not being able to stay until the end of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) appeared on "Question Time" last night at a distant destination. He is travelling back this morning and hopes to be with us by 11.30. He conveys his apologies--[Interruption.]
Mrs. Browning: Before Labour Members start making ribald comments, I remind them that I was far more gracious a fortnight ago when a Labour Member decided, for constituency reasons, to leave a debate that the Government had chosen on family friendly policies. Therefore, I hope that Labour Members will moderate their sedentary remarks.
Mr. Byers: Most hon. Members would accept previous constituency engagements, and the priority that they take, as a reason for absence. However, it is an insult to the House when a shadow spokesman puts appearing on a television programme before coming to the House. I am sure that the House is shocked that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) has put an appearance on "Question Time" before the discharge of his shadow responsibilities in the House. That is shameful conduct.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. A fast return to the Queen's Speech is in order.
Mrs. Browning: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the comment that I was about to make might not have been appropriate for the Dispatch Box.
The Secretary of State kindly quoted from The Mid Devon Gazette, which is an excellent newspaper that circulates in my constituency. The editor will be pleased if the Secretary of State's comments from the Dispatch Box increase circulation, but if the Secretary of State wants to know what I say and do locally, I have an extremely good website at: www.abrowning.demon.co.uk. [Hon. Members: "Demon!"] Yes, and proud of it.
My local press releases and the full text of the speech from which the Secretary of State began to quote are on the website. I commend the piece from which he quoted because it gives him--and the rest of the world--a short, but concise and accurate summary of the way in which the Government are breaking up the constitution of the United Kingdom. Perhaps the Secretary of State will consider that and visit my website from time to time.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk):
Dial a demon.
Mrs. Browning:
Yes, dial a demon.
As we heard in the Gracious Speech, from the Prime Minister and from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry this morning, the Government's programme is supposedly based on enterprise and fairness. Such is the
Government's success in building an enterprise culture, that, in only two years, this country has slipped from fourth to eighth in the league of world competitiveness. They have imposed £30 billion in stealth taxes on business through, for example, higher fuel duties, stamp duties, changes to the administration of corporation tax and abolishing tax credits on pension funds. Despite the Secretary of State's words about the importance of IT and e-commerce, £500 million extra tax will be imposed on people who work in personal services companies. Through the IR35 regulation, companies in this country that have no reason to source staff who live in the United Kingdom are more likely to seek staff who live abroad and thus beyond the problems that the Government's taxation policies cause.
I and many of my hon. Friends spent many years in business and we admire the way in which the Government have learned the language of business. However, it is clear from their policies that it is not instinctive--indeed, when we examine their track record, we find that their grasp is bogus. I had a little chuckle when the Secretary of State explained the way in which he, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and others will establish a star chamber to wage what the Prime Minister describes as a war on red tape. We understand from the press that the Minister for the Cabinet Office began the process by holding a dinner at Lancaster house for 12 chief executives of companies from the FTSE 100. That flies in the face of the Secretary of State's comments about the importance of small business. The hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) made an excellent point about the fact that legislation often does not affect--and even suits--large businesses, but has a disproportionate effect on small companies.
If the star chamber begins its work by gathering representatives of companies from the FTSE 100 round a select dinner table, it will not resolve the problem or lift the burden that the Government have imposed on small businesses. The Government have not got a clue. A feel for business, and especially small business, is not instinctive to them. Therefore, they produce a lot of words, set up more regulation task forces, more of this and that, and achieve nothing. What happened to the better regulation task force that Lord Haskins chaired? He simply reminded the Government, after they legislated, that they had made a dog's dinner of implementing regulations.
I do not expect any hope from the Minister for the Cabinet Office who, in a written answer on 11 November, said:
I can remember, for example, revoking 12 licences in a day. I was not flooded out with people saying, "Gosh, that has made a real difference to my life." However, we hoped that it would make a difference and we learned
what the Government have yet to learn: merely considering the number of regulations deals with only the margins of the problem, although that does not mean that our motives were not well intentioned.
Looking at the cost of regulation is a different matter and I am sorry that the Minister for the Cabinet Office dismisses it as unimportant, as she does at column 825 of Hansard. Of course it is important, which is why we in the Conservative party have already published in "The Common Sense Revolution" a pledge for the Conservative Government who will take office after the next election: we will carry out an independent audit of every Department to identify the cost of the regulations that each Department puts on business. Having done that, every Secretary of State will be given a target for reducing the costs on business during the lifetime of a Parliament. They will have to report annually to Parliament to show in a transparent way the progress that they are making. When costs on business are reduced, it can feel the burden lifting.
Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon):
That sounds like more bureaucratic red tape to me.
Mrs. Browning:
The hon. Gentleman derides what I am saying, but his is not the party of business--I do not expect it to understand. When costs on business are removed, it starts to feel the weight lifting from its shoulders. If the Government are to make any impact at all on the appalling burden that they have already put on business in just over two years, the Secretary of State will have to do a little better than holding grand dinners in posh surroundings for the top FTSE 100 companies.
Labour, of course, is the problem, not the solution. To realise that, we have only to look at what it has done in terms of the burden placed on business by the cost of employment legislation. The Secretary of State described a range of policies that the Government have already put on a statutory basis, suggesting that we are opposed to them. Within the broad spectrum of family friendly policies, we are not opposed to many of them, but I say again--as we said in Committee and when the legislation was going through the House--that we genuinely believe that they are best left on a voluntary basis and should be agreed by employer and employee. We start to put burdens on business the moment that we put such policies on a statutory basis.
It is all very well for the Government to say to the general public, "We are improving your working conditions." That is fine, but they are doing so by simply dipping their hand into the pocket of business and expecting it to pick up the tab for their proposals.
Mr. Geraint Davies:
Does the hon. Lady accept that business wants a low-risk environment of stability and on-going growth? Under the Conservatives, there was record business bankruptcy, and boom and bust rather than business friendliness. Her words about business would be laughed at by the business community.
Mrs. Browning:
I spend a lot of time with members of the business community and when I put these proposals to them, not only do they not laugh, but they urge me to do what I can to make the Government see the error of their ways in their treatment of small business. Of course
"The volume and cost of regulation is less important than its quality and effectiveness."---[Official Report, 11 November 1999; Vol. 337, c. 825]
There is a case for claiming that simply examining the number of regulations and setting a target for reducing it is not necessarily the most effective way in which to lift the burden on businesses. I say that after spending three years as a Minister under the previous Government, who tried to reduce regulation on business. We would be the first to say that we did not do very well, but at least we examined the problem from the philosophical standpoint of opposition to regulation.
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