Small Business (Hansard, 15 June 1995)

§ 1. Mr. Jenkin
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress has been made with measures to help small business announced in his 1993 and 1994 Budgets. [27001]

§ The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jonathan Aitken)
My right hon. and learned Friend's Budget measures to help small firms are making good progress, particularly in regard to the enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trusts.

§ Mr. Jenkin
When Ministers consult small businesses with regard to the next Budget, will my right hon. Friend take on board the views of the vast majority of small businesses, which have no interest in a single European currency? Could that be because they experience the reality of doing business as small firms, and know that we export less than 8 per cent. of our gross domestic product in goods and services to the hard-core countries of the European Union which are likely to participate in a single currency? Will my right hon. Friend assure me that those firms will not be treated as right-wing xenophobes?

§ Mr. Aitken
Like my hon. Friend, I have noted the views of the Federation of Small Businesses, which makes a great contribution to our domestic economy and our performance as not just a European but a world trading nation.
I hope that the federation will take some comfort from what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said about the single currency on 8 June, namely that 874 the circumstances may not ever be right".—[Official Report, 8 June 1995; Vol. 261, c. 316.] Encouraging signals have also come from President Chirac's Government. All those signs suggest that the prospects of economic and monetary union are receding into more distant and uncertain horizons; but when any decision is made, it will be made on the basis of what is in Britain's best national interests and in accordance with our constitutional arrangements.

§ Mr. Skinner
Is the Chief Secretary aware that very few people will take any notice of his answers about anything? When he went to a board meeting of BMARC—a small business—he sat there not even knowing what was being done. He was paid £10,000 a year for not asking questions; two of his mates got done £2,000 for asking questions. What kind of a show does the right hon. Gentleman think he is running?

§ Mr. Aitken
I might as well retort that nowadays the hon. Gentleman does not seem to know what his own Front Benchers are doing. I am, however, glad to have a chance to repeat to the House that I stand by my statement on 30 March that I was given not the slightest indication or information, as a non-executive director, that any of the contracts that were going to Singapore would in any way be for onward shipment to Iran or anywhere else. I welcome the new inquiries that are taking place, and I am certain that at the end of the day they will clear my name completely.

§ Mr. Congdon
Does my right hon. Friend agree that small businesses will provide an increasing number of jobs over the next decade and beyond? Is it not vital, therefore, to ensure that we continue to have low interest rates and low inflation to provide the right economic framework to enable those businesses to prosper?

§ Mr. Aitken
My hon. Friend is right: small businesses are the life-blood of Britain's economy. There are some 3 million of them, and they create employment for some 50 per cent. of the work force. They depend, as much as any other part of the economy, on a stable economic framework in which there are sound public finances, low inflation and sustainable growth—all of which conditions have been put in place by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.