Bill Esterson
Main Page: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)Department Debates - View all Bill Esterson's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend’s knowledge in this area is well known, and he has applied it as a Member of Parliament to promoting schemes that help the life sciences industry—and not just the big companies, although we welcome the Johnson & Johnson announcement, but the small companies, too. The biomedical catalyst fund has been very successful at supporting small businesses in this sector. Without giving too much away about tomorrow’s announcements, I can tell him that we will go on funding this scheme.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Can the Chancellor tell us how many firms have been helped by his small firms national insurance holiday since it started three years ago, given that he claimed it would help 400,000 firms?
Mr Osborne
About 20,000 firms have been helped—[Interruption.] Well, 20,000 firms have been helped, small business creation is at the highest level since the 1980s and there are over 1 million new jobs in the private sector. And we will bring before Parliament new legislation to make sure that the first few thousand pounds of their national insurance bill is completely wiped out—they will not have to pay it at all. That is a real success story, and if the Opposition want to vote against it, they can be my guest.