Business and the Economy

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I think that I can deliver the spirit if not the letter of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I do not think that we can override European legislation in quite that way, but I do agree that there is a lot of unnecessary and burdensome European regulation, and I am working with what we call like-minded Ministers in other European Governments to get rid of it as much as possible.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have great admiration and respect for the Secretary of State because he is one of the few leaders of the coalition Government who has ever had a proper job. What does he say to the Foreign Secretary, a man who has had very little experience in the real world, whose message to business people is that they are lazy and should work harder?

[Vince Cable]

I do not think that the Foreign Secretary actually said that. He works extremely hard with me and my colleagues promoting British business around the world. A large part of his job is commercial diplomacy and he is doing it extremely well.

One key proposal in the enterprise and regulatory reform Bill is legislation for the UK green investment bank, which will drive the transition to a green economy. The Bill will set the bank’s purpose, ensure its independence and make funding provision. The bank will be formed as a public company under the Companies Act, with initial funding of £3 billion to March 2015. It will operate independently from Government, but will agree its strategic priorities with the Government. Until formally established, the Government are making investments, on commercial terms, in green infrastructure through a specialist team in my Department. I reported to a Standing Committee of the House two weeks ago on its progress.

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[Vince Cable]

I recognise that there are particular problems for small companies in adapting their work practices, but of course many of the most successful small companies have flexible practices. The idea of creating a two-tier labour market in this respect has many practical difficulties, but we can debate that as the Bill goes through Parliament.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before the Secretary of State moves on from that point—I can see from his papers, I think, that he is coming towards the end of his speech—I would like to point out that he has not once yet said anything about innovation, he has said little about entrepreneurs and enterprise, and he has said something complacent about the levels of unemployment, which include 1 million unemployed young people. What is in the Queen’s Speech about that and what is he going to do about that?

[Vince Cable]

That sounds like the basis of a speech in the debate. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are pursuing forceful policies in respect of innovation, including the establishment of the catapults across the country—something entirely new and positive in the innovation sphere—without the need for legislative approval.

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[Mr Umunna]

I will come to that. As I have said, the primary authority scheme that the Secretary of State has mentioned was something that we introduced when we were in government, and I support the proposal to extend it.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before my hon. Friend leaves the pronouncements of the Foreign Secretary, I want to ask him whether he heard Lord Digby Jones speaking on Radio 4 this morning of the Government’s decision to “decimate” and “cut” UK Trade & Investment—the trade and investment arm of the Foreign Office. Is not that a reflection on the Foreign Secretary, who is not working very well or very hard himself?

[Mr Umunna]

I think that UKTI needs to do a hell of a lot better, as my hon. Friend suggests. Actually, I think that this Government need to work a hell of a lot harder before they start lecturing others. It is not that we disagree about the need to increase our exports, but let us take a step back. The Government’s economic policy is one of expansionary fiscal contraction. Their idea is to hack off parts of the public sector and take away things that the Government do, and they expect the private sector automatically to step in and fill the gap. I do not think that telling business people that they are whingeing and not working hard enough is a way to inspire them to do what the Government expect of them.

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[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have been a Member of the House long enough to have heard quite a few Queen’s Speeches. Some were good, some were bad and more were indifferent. I do not say that on a party political basis, as some of Labour’s Queen’s Speeches did not live up to all their glister when they were first heard. I tend to take Queen’s Speeches with a pinch of salt. With the experience of two years of this coalition Government, however, I have noticed—I might even have said this to you when you were one of my students at university, Mr Deputy Speaker, although there was no recent experience at that time—that coalitions seem to sacrifice leadership and imagination. There is not enough boldness to lead with the necessary imagination. When we look back at this period, I suspect we will find that there was not enough leadership or imagination in this Queen’s Speech.

After all, here we are in the most turbulent period economically in not just European but global history. We might all be swept away by something that is mainly outside our control in the eurozone. Nobody really knows whether something dreadful might happen in the Greek economy and then move across to Portugal, Spain and all the rest. We know that some of the scenarios are very grim indeed for our country, which is not just a little island on its own. There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech that said that we are in such a perilous situation that we need to batten down to face a turbulent and difficult future. Something like that should have been acknowledged.

In the short time available, I shall centre my remarks on what I would have expected this Government, dominated as it is by the Conservative party, to know about—manufacturing and small business. Conservative Members often say that they understand manufacturing and small business very well, but I do not think they do. I talk to small businesses all the time. I find that they feel—and I think they are right—that the people who lead this coalition Government spend a great deal of time talking to big businesses in the FTSE 100 but do not talk to the small companies in which our future lies, although all the research suggests that it is small and medium-sized enterprises that will provide the employment, give us the apprenticeships, and keep us moving and developing as a successful country.

[Robert Flello]

Is not the Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Act, which was rushed through the other day, a good example of the Government listening only to big business? It will help the big supermarkets, but harm the small businesses which normally make some money on Sundays when the supermarkets are closed.

[Mr Sheerman]

I believe that my hon. Friend and I voted in different Lobbies on that occasion, so I will not develop the point any further.

What are small and medium-sized enterprises in this country looking for? They are looking to the Government to promote innovation. All the research shows that we must invest in small companies, which are often in the high-tech sector. They will be the new employers; they will be the organisations carrying out the innovation. After all, our country was built on innovation and on entrepreneurs, and my town of Huddersfield was built on people who understood that. It is true that they had free energy, which, as was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), is extremely important in a world of automation. Although we can substantially increase the number of people working in manufacturing, it will not return to the 20% or 30% level. The fact remains that it is to the small companies that we must look for the future.

There was not enough about banks in the Queen’s Speech. Here they are, with all this taxpayers’ money, and we still cannot persuade them to lend to new businesses. What on earth is going on? The banks have all that money, but they are still reluctant to invest in new ventures. The Government should have done something about that. Let us see better finance for the productive sector from the banks, and let us also expand our manufacturing exports. We hear time and again that we are not taking advantage of the markets in China, Brazil, Russia and India.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman mention countries such as Brazil, China and Japan, and also banking. Given that the debate is about the Queen’s Speech, what piece of legislation would he seek to introduce to achieve his very sensible goals?

[Mr Sheerman]

Everyone knows that we could have had legislation that strengthened the Government’s power to force banks to lend to small businesses.

It was me, in an intervention, and not the shadow Secretary of State, who drew attention to what had been said by Lord Jones this morning. He said that the trade and industry outreach of the Foreign Office had been decimated in recent months. We need to expand our manufacturing exports, and the small and medium-sized enterprises will do that as well.

If we are to rebalance the economy, we must recognise what the Queen’s Speech does not recognise: London and the south have become totally out of proportion in terms of infrastructure investment, resources and everything else that we can think of. To those who come down here from Yorkshire, the north-west or even the midlands, this part of the world is a foreign country. There is no recession here, but there has been a recession for three years in the regions of our country. The fact that the Queen’s Speech makes no reference to that is a disgrace.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Sheerman]

No. I will not be given extra time if I give way again.

Finally, let me say something about skills and management. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on management, which recently received a report from the Chartered Management Institute showing that 43% of managers in this country are not very good and 23% are awful. Whether it involves running a hospital, running Parliament, running a school or running a business such as an SME, good, skilled management is underrated in this country.

What we needed in the Queen’s Speech was a proposal to abolish unemployment among young people for good. We should have a system like the Dutch system, under which no one under 25 is unemployed. Everyone below that age is in a job, in education or training. No one is allowed to stay at home receiving an income and doing nothing. That is the way in which to repay, for years and years, the great debt that is owed to individuals and to heal the scars that they bear, and to deal with the cost of it all to our country.

We must do something at a time when—I do not know whether anyone has seen the figures—there are 6.9 million unemployed graduates in Europe today. That means 6.9 million wasted talents, but what did the Queen’s Speech do about that? Nothing.