Small Businesses (Hansard, 18 July 1977)

§ 15. Mr. Luce
asked the Secretary of State for Industry what further measures he intends to take to encourage small businesses to expand.

§ Mr. Cryer
The need for special measures to encourage the expansion of small businesses is kept under constant review. We are actively considering the extension nationwide of the pilot counselling service for small firms in the South-West, and we have announced our intention to introduce a manufacturing advisory service.

§ Mr. Luce
If the Minister is aware that the removal of the existing battery of legislative and tax obstacles to small businesses would do much to create wealth and thereby to create employment, what on earth is he waiting for? Does he realise that a whole mass of small business men feel that they are waiting for Godot?

§ Mr. Cryer
We expect from the Opposition the sort of uninformed and prejudiced comment that came from the hon. Gentleman. He ignores the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently announced that the preferential rate of corporation tax, specifically designed for small firms, has been raised from a level of profits of £30,000 to £40,000—and that marginal relief has been raised to £65,000. Small firms also qualify for the very generous tax allowances for investment in plant and machinery, which have been described by the CBI—an organisation with which I am sure the hon. Member has some sympathy—as the most generous tax relief system in Western Europe. Small firms also qualify for the wide range of regional preferential expenditure, which in 197576 amounted to £669 million. I should have thought that this was positive encouragement to industry to invest.

§ Mr. Clemitson
Does my hon. Friend agree that co-operative and common ownership firms have a particularly important part to play in the small-to-medium size sector? What progress is being made with the setting up, or plans for the setting up, of the Co-operative Development Agency?

§ Mr. Cryer
The Co-operative Development Agency is currently being considered by a working party which my right hon. Friend chaired in the first instance. We very much hope that a report from the working party will be available for publication this summer. I cannot give an absolute assurance, but that is the time scale at which we are aiming, so that the co-operative and trade union movement can consider the report and engage in debate on it. We hope that this will result in a further development of the sort of activity that my hon. Friend has in mind.

§ Mr. Richard Wainwright
In view of the pressing needs of small businesses, to which the Minister has referred, and his encouragingly larger work load in this specific respect, will he press his colleagues to have a Minister appointed solely to concentrate on the needs and requirements of small businesses?

§ Mr. Cryer
Because of my self-effacing nature, I hesitate to draw attention yet again to the fact that I have specific responsibility for small firms. Many organisations representing small firms make their representations to me, and we endeavour to ensure, whenever items of legislation arise, that full consultations are entered into. Certainly the Department of Industry—myself in particular—is open to representations from the small firms sector and welcomes them.