Small Businesses (Hansard, 27 July 1983)

§ 3. Mr. Colvin
asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he is preparing any new proposals to help small businesses.

§ The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Cecil Parkinson)
I am considering the need for measures to help small businesses. I believe that the priorities now are to ensure that those who run or wish to start small businesses are fully aware of the many schemes which have been introduced already and to reduce the administrative and legislative burdens on them.

§ Mr. Colvin
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the debt that the House owes to the former Member for Upminster, 1169 Mr. John Loveridge, for all that he did to help formulate the Government's policy on small businesses? Has my right hon. Friend read the 40-point agenda for action which represents the unfinished business of the small businesses committee? Can he comment on the proposal to bring the development commission and COSIRA within his responsibility rather than that of the Department of the Environment?

§ Mr. Parkinson
I join my hon. Friend in his remarks about John Loveridge, who did a tremendous amount of work on this subject. The merger of COSIRA and the small businesses division has been considered. They have slightly different objectives. COSIRA is in the business of stimulating industry in rural areas. There is an overlap, but not a total identity. There has been a pilot scheme and we are considering its results. I think that there is some promise of better co-operation in this area.

§ Mr. Hardy
Can the Minister say how many of today's small businesses were large or medium-sized businesses five years ago?

§ Mr. Parkinson
I cannot answer that question, as the hon. Gentleman knows. I know, however, that if many large businesses had not become smaller they would not have survived. Now that they are smaller and better they have the prospect of growth, where before there was the prospect of death.

§ Mr. Grylls
When my right hon. Friend considers new measures, will he examine how Government procurement affects small businesses and see that measures are taken to ensure that they get a bigger proportion of the orders from central Government and local government? Will he start by ensuring that every Department keeps statistics of orders that go to small firms? That would at least be a beginning.

§ Mr. Parkinson
We are trying to ensure that small businesses have a chance to tender for and obtain a share of the vast public procurement programmes of the Government, despite allegations to the contrary from the Opposition.

§ Mr. Wrigglesworth
I recognise the contribution which the loan guarantee scheme makes to help small businesses, but is the Secretary of State aware that the ceiling limit gives rise to problems for some small businesses? Will he consider that? Will he also consider the way in which the banks administer the scheme, as there seems to be considerable variations between them? Will he consult clubs and institutions which represent small businesses, such as the Teesside small business club, to see whether the situation can be improved?

§ Mr. Parkinson
If the hon. Gentleman will forward to me any views that he has, or ask the Teesside business club to let me have its views, I shall be happy to consider them. Raising the limit is more a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer than for me, but I shall consider what the hon. Gentleman has said.

§ Sir Anthony Grant
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the best thing that the Government can do for small firms is to do absolutely nothing and to leave them alone? We must get the Government off their backs. If he could make the whole of Britain an enterprise zone, the better it would be for smaller firms and everybody else.

§ Mr. Parkinson
I admire my hon. Friend's confidence, but he, too, must have spoken at many political meetings at which the first question from the small business man is, "I do not want the Government to do anything, but what are the Government going to do for small busineses?"

§ Mr. Orme
Is not the confidence of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) backed up by the fact that in 1982 there were 12,000 company liquidations in England and Wales, which is more than two and a half times the 1979 figure and the highest level ever recorded? When will the Government do something for small businesses, instead of putting forward cosmetic solutions as they are at present?

§ Mr. Parkinson
The right hon. Gentleman knows that accounts have two sides. On the debit side there were many liquidations, but on the credit side there were a great many more company formations. I wish that he would sometimes talk about that instead of constantly harping on the bad features of our economy.