Small and Medium-sized Businesses

The Government have launched our small business plan, which my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), did so much great work on. “Backing your Business” outlines how we will make thriving small and medium-sized businesses a reality across the UK. We are unlocking billions of pounds in finance to support businesses, including through the most significant reforms to tackle late payments in 25 years. We will support businesses further by revitalising high streets and delivering growth-boosting support for digital adoption through a new online business growth service.

For British Beauty Week last week, I visited the award-winning Doncaster salon Beauty Lounge in Armthorpe. The British beauty industry is a massive success story for business. What will the Minister do in his new role to support the industry and salons across the country?

As ever, my hon. Friend is a great advocate for all things Doncaster. The beauty sector is a vital driver of innovation, sustainability and wellbeing across the economy, but also locally, through businesses like the Beauty Lounge. That is why we are backing small businesses through the small business plan, as I just set out, but we are also reforming business rates and have increased the employment allowance, enabling employers to hire up to four full-time workers without paying national insurance contributions. I am always told on social media that I am in need of a glow-up—perhaps the next time I am in Doncaster, the Beauty Lounge can help me out.

Leigh and Atherton has many exceptional SMEs that are driving local growth, particularly in manufacturing, engineering and construction. What steps is the Minister taking to make sure that SMEs in areas like mine receive targeted support as part of efforts to address regional imbalance and reduce reliance on our major metropolitan centres?

I know my hon. Friend is a great believer in Leigh and Atherton’s untapped potential, and so are we. We have launched the small business strategy, with action on late payments, action to unlock access to finance, and better, simpler support through the business growth hub. In addition to that, Leigh will receive £20 million through the pride in place programme. I know my hon. Friend fought hard for that on her community’s behalf.

My constituency has nearly 5,000 SMEs, all of which are facing increasing business rates and taxes, threatening jobs and growth. Will the Minister signal his support for SMEs by following the Conservative party’s lead and completely abolishing business rates for pubs and restaurants on the high street?

I gently say to the hon. Member that he did not do that in 14 years in government. Indeed, the Conservatives were set to remove the reliefs on small businesses. Rather than repeating the mistakes of the Liz Truss Budget with unfunded tax commitments, we are giving real support to businesses now, including by increasing the employment allowance so that more and more of the small businesses that he describes do not pay national insurance contributions at all.

I recently met with Discover Adventure, a small business in Coombe Bissett which is genuinely struggling to engage with Government over the recent package travel regulations. It sits ambiguously between DBT, the Department for Transport and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; indeed, a question was thrown back today, having been tabled in the Table Office. May I sincerely ask the Minister to help me locate the correct Minister to deal with the Association of Independent Tour Operators? This is a vital small business sector in this country, and it needs someone to engage with in Government over these regulations.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his constructive question; I am very happy to pursue that within Government. The wider point is that both the small business strategy and the industrial strategy are important because they are cross-Government strategies, as lots of sectors and individual businesses are facing challenges that are not just the responsibility of one Minister. I will certainly follow up on that.

I call the shadow Minister.

I associate myself with the remarks about British Beauty Week. In addition to beauty businesses, one of the key ingredients for growth on our high streets is having a post office in the mix. As Post Office Minister, he has inherited a network of 11,500 post offices across the country and a consultation on the size of that network. Can he echo what his predecessor said at the Dispatch Box, and commit to supporting our high streets by maintaining the scale of the post office network throughout this Parliament?

I thank the shadow Minister for her welcome. She is absolutely right about the anchoring effect of post offices on high streets all over the country. We know not just that, as we mentioned in the Green Paper, if people go to their post office they are likely to spend money in local shops, but that post offices are essential—as I found out during a visit to one the day before yesterday—in giving small businesses somewhere to take their takings. The Green Paper set out the options for maintenance of the post office network, and it is certainly our intention to maintain it.