Gareth Thomas MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government had a very difficult fiscal inheritance and had to make some very tough choices in the Budget back in October. We continue to provide a subsidy to the Post Office of some £50 million to ensure that the loss-making parts of the network can be maintained. Indeed, just before Christmas we provided a further £37.5 million to support the Post Office network this year. We are working with the senior leadership team at the Post Office on future opportunities, beginning with banking, so that the company can increase its product offers and commercial revenue while reducing its costs, as well as improving the service to all our constituents. I heard the specific concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, whose constituency includes Stornoway, about the future of the directly managed post office in his constituency. No decisions have been made on the future of all the directly managed branches, but I know he will continue to campaign on the issue. We want our post offices to form part of healthy, bustling high streets. Like the post office itself, our high streets have had to adapt quickly to the post-covid economy. High streets have faced more than their fair share of challenges in recent years, in terms of vacancies opening up—an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket referred to. That is why in December we brought forward new powers for councils, which can now force landlords to rent out unsightly, vacant, boarded-up properties via high street rental auctions. The new regulations will make town centre tenancies more accessible and affordable, giving local businesses and community groups a right to rent valuable space on their local high street. I welcome the fact that Bassetlaw, Darlington and Mansfield are already working with us as early adopters to help to learn how the new power can be used to make a difference. We have also announced our intention to introduce a new community right to buy, empowering residents to address decline and protect valuable spaces such as pubs, theatres and cinemas, and thereby keeping those assets in the hands of the local community. We are investing in further initiatives to boost town and city centres, including by maintaining the high street accelerators that bring together the local community, businesses and property owners to work in partnership with their council to regenerate and revive local high streets. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe referred to our work to improve and reform the business rates system. That was a key manifesto pledge that we are beginning to deliver on, with permanently lower tax rates for retail, hospitality and leisure properties, including those on the high street, from 2026-27. We have published a discussion paper to explore what else we can do in this space. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk referred to issues to do with digital connectivity. He will be pleased that we are committing over £500 million next year to deliver Project Gigabit and the shared rural network to roll out broadband and 4G connectivity, which will support growth in rural areas and beyond. Digital connectivity is one consideration for rural communities but, as hon. Members have rightly pointed out, physical connectivity is another. For people in far-flung communities, especially those without a car or family living nearby, getting to the high street can be extremely difficult. We recognise that challenge and are responding in turn with more than £650 million for local transport outside city regions in 2025-26. The Department for Transport will say more about how that funding will be used shortly. We are also providing more than £1 billion of funding to support and improve local bus services and keep fares affordable wherever we can. In December we introduced the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill that will put control over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England. It is intended to ensure that bus services reflect the needs of the communities that rely on them. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and all Members who participated in this debate for their contributions. High streets are the beating heart of all our communities. The services they provide are essential for the people and businesses they serve. As a Minister with a key interest in this area, I look forward to continuing to work with hon. Members to help to improve local high street services in their communities.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. In the usual way, let me, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this important debate. We have heard a series of powerful speeches from Members from Northern Ireland and from the Liberal Democrat Benches, and some particularly strong speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), for Rushcliffe (James Naish), for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy), for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) and for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume). I note in passing that not one Conservative Back-Bench MP or Reform MP is present to champion rural areas. I gently say to the shadow Minister that if the previous Government had done a slightly better job, this debate would perhaps not be necessary. I will address as many of the points that have been raised as I can, but let me first say this. It goes without saying that our high streets play a vital role in providing a place for communities to come together, work, socialise, shop and access essential services. I very much share the passion of Members across the Chamber for ensuring that all communities in rural areas have access to those services, wherever they are in the UK. Rural areas offer significant potential for economic growth. More than half a million businesses are registered in rural areas, and the rural economy contributes more than £315 billion a year in England alone. The Government are committed to improving the quality of life for people living and working in rural areas, in part so that we can realise the full potential of rural businesses. If a high street or town centre is to flourish, residents, businesses and councils must work together to develop their own unique offer for the high street that resonates with the local community. That is why this Government are focused on our five-point plan to breathe life back into Britain’s high streets: addressing antisocial behaviour and retail crime, reforming the business rates system, rolling out banking hubs, stamping out late payments, and empowering communities to make the most of the vacant properties with which rural communities, and indeed urban ones, are all too familiar. We have already made progress on that plan. My Department is working with others across Government to ensure that we do all we can to create thriving high streets now and long into the future. Our small business strategy, which we will publish later this year, will set out further plans to support small businesses on the high street and beyond. We want to support efforts to ensure that all our high streets are places for our businesses, local people and visitors, creating jobs and economic growth wherever they are in the UK. When thinking about solutions to the future of the high street in rural areas and more generally, we need to recognise that no two high streets are the same, and that the way we live and work is evolving quickly. A series of hon. Members raised the issue of high street banks and branch closures. The UK branch network is now below 5,000—half what it was in 2015—and although the banks point to the increasing use of digital channels for day-to-day banking, access to cash and in-person banking services are still essential for many, not least the elderly and the vulnerable, who often need face-to-face engagement to get their banking sorted.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but he has only just rocked up to the debate, so if he will forgive me, on this occasion I will not give way. If there is a specific issue about which he wants to write to me, I would be happy to look at it. Hon. Members will know that the FCA engages with banks and building societies to ensure that the impacts of branch closures on customers are properly considered. Where firms fall short, the FCA can and will ask for a closure to be paused or for other options to be put in place. Some banks also provide pop-up services, with a community banker visiting a library or a community centre to offer support where other options are not available. I understand that that has been the case in the constituency of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross following the announcement of the closure of the Bank of Scotland branch in Golspie, and that Lloyds Banking Group will be providing a pop-up community banking service on a regular basis to support local people with banking services. For a number of reasons, we are beginning to look at what else the Post Office can do to improve its banking offer, and I hope to say a little more about that in a moment. When the local high street bank closes, the alternative option for accessing everyday banking services in person is the post office. As our economy has modernised and evolved, so too have our local post offices. Today, they are much more than just a place to send letters and parcels. They increasingly act as basic high street banks, but also as access points for some Government services and, in many places, as community hubs for an array of different activities, generating tremendous social capital in our communities. So it is right that the Government hold the Post Office to account to ensure there is enough provision across the country. We protect the post office network by setting minimum access criteria. At all times, we want 99% of the UK population to live within three miles of a post office and 90% to live within one mile.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  Having some Welsh blood, I am instinctively sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. I would not put it in quite the way that he did, but if he and his constituents have concerns about the service that the post office provides in his constituency, I am happy to take those up. Perhaps outwith this debate, he might drop me a line or have a word; I am certainly willing to press the post office. I will come back to the question of post office banking services. Just before Christmas, the Chancellor opened the 100th banking hub in Darwen in Lancashire. Out of the 100-plus that have now opened, 12 are located in Scotland, seven in Wales and five in Northern Ireland. This is just the start. I am pleased that Cash Access UK and LINK have announced that over 200 banking hub locations have been recommended, including a further four in Wales, one in Northern Ireland and 17 in Scotland. Among those will be a new banking hub in Wick, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross mentioned. I acknowledge his work and campaigning for the banking hub in Wick, which I hope goes some way to addressing the concerns in his constituency that he mentioned. On the question of banking hubs, I should say that where they are located is determined independently by LINK, the operator of the largest ATM network in the UK. An access to cash review can be requested via its website, which also sets out the criteria it uses for considering locations for banking hubs. These include population size, whether other banks remain nearby, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises on the high street and public transport links, as well as the level of vulnerability in the community. When it comes to big high street banks pressing ahead with closures, we expect all banking firms to follow closely the Financial Conduct Authority’s branch closure guidance in supporting their customers.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member may want me to go straight from this debate to the Treasury to get an immediate concession.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer opened the 100th banking hub very recently, and I know from figures that Cash Access UK and LINK have published that 200 locations for banking hubs have been identified; that is part of the commitment to roll out 350 banking hubs. But we want to do more. The Post Office plays a key role in offering banking services, particularly as banks themselves have exited the high street, and we are beginning work with the Post Office to strengthen its banking offer on the high street. I heard very clearly the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) about the directly managed branch in her constituency. I recognise the importance of post offices to all our high streets. She will know that no decision has been made on Hampstead—or, indeed, on any other directly managed branch—but I know she will continue to campaign on this issue. To support businesses, the Budget honoured the manifesto commitment not to raise corporation tax. It set out the tax road map for this Parliament, in which we will not change corporation tax, which means we have the lowest rate in the G7. All that will support businesses, including retailers, to invest. As the hon. Member for East Londonderry is aware, retail is a devolved matter. I welcome measures such as the Back in Business rate support scheme, which has been created to incentivise business rate payers to consider occupying empty retail premises. Vacancy is a blight on too many of our high streets and town centres across the country and it can fuel a spiral of decline. That is why Government in all forms need to work together with local communities and businesses to strengthen the offer.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Budget in October the intention to permanently lower the level of business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure. She published a discussion paper at the same time to involve the business community in further discussions about what else we can do in the business rates space. I strongly encourage hon. Members across the House to encourage businesses in their communities to get involved in that debate. That makes all the more striking the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley about the approach of the SNP Government in Scotland not to get behind businesses. I hope that her speech was listened to and will be acted on by those currently in government in Scotland. Hon. Members will know that more widely we have introduced high street rental auctions, enabling local authorities to tackle decline on the high street by bringing vacant units back into use. We are already working with three local authorities to begin to learn the lessons of how that new power works.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  That is generous of him. I will take that question away and look at it. I know that that is an issue particular to Northern Ireland. He will understand that it is not immediately the responsibility of the Department for Business and Trade, but I will none the less take a look at it.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  Forgive me, but I have only 2.5 minutes. If I missed something and the hon. Gentleman wants to write to me, I will be happy to reply. I have touched on business rates reform. We want to introduce a new business growth service to simplify the support available for all small businesses and bring it under one single trusted banner. We will set out further reforms in that regard in our small business strategy, which we will publish later this year. Since I took office, I have been in engaging with the industry-led Retail Sector Council, which is a collaborative forum made up of widely experienced senior figures from across all parts of the retail industry, helping us and indeed other Government Departments to think through the challenges facing the retail sector. One of those big challenges is about how we tackle retail crime. Shop theft continues to increase at an unacceptable level, with more and more offenders using violence and abuse against shop workers. Recent figures from the British Retail Consortium’s annual crime survey show that violent and abusive incidents were up by more than 50% last year, and retailers are reporting 55,000 thefts a day. That is why clamping down on that behaviour is one of the first steps that we are taking to deliver safer communities, including delivering on a specific commitment for a new offence of assault on a shop worker. We are also ending the effective immunity that the previous Government granted to help stop theft of goods under £200. We all know that retail businesses are hugely important to our constituents and to our high streets. I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry for giving the House the opportunity to raise this important issue. I am happy to take up further specific concerns that any hon. Member has in this space. Question put and agreed to.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. In the usual way, I congratulate the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) on securing today’s important debate, and I apologise to him and to other Members for getting my timing slightly wrong. I will make a point of reading the early part of this debate in Hansard a little later. We have heard contributions from the hon. Member for East Londonderry and my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley (Imogen Walker), but also important interventions from a series of hon. Members. In the short time available to me, I will probably not be able to do full justice to all those interventions, but let me try to pick up at least one or two of the points made. Crucially, we need to underline the fact that retail has a key role to play in supporting high streets in every corner of the UK—particularly in Northern Ireland, given the focus of this debate, but more generally across the UK as well. In 2023, the retail sector contributed about £110 billion to our economy: just under 5% of the total UK economy. It remains a very high employment sector, directly supporting 2.9 million jobs across the UK in 2023. In short, retail is the backbone of our high streets and remains a key driver to support economic growth. I recognise that recently there have been concerning stories in the media about the challenges that retailers are facing, and I know that that is a concern for Members across the House. We know that retailers are facing a series of economic headwinds, as well as dealing with the challenges of changing consumer shopping habits and the rise of online shopping. A thriving high street will continue to need a strong retail offering, helping to drive growth in local economies and supporting local communities. Never has it been so important to help retailers—particularly the small and independent retail businesses to which a number of Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), have referred—to grow.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Local Post Offices · Hansard source

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  Funnily enough, I am aware of that statistic; my hon. Friend makes his point powerfully. We were clear in our manifesto that that we would seek to strengthen the Post Office network in consultation with postmasters, trade unions and customers, and that remains very much our ambition. That is one of the reasons why we are working closely with the Post Office in providing funding to support the replacement of the Horizon computer system. The Post Office’s future lies particularly in cash and banking. With the right support from the financial services industry and engagement with groups such as Cash Access UK, there is clearly more that the Post Office could offer on the high street through banking hubs and the Post Office network. We are beginning to work with the Post Office to improve its banking offer on the high street. The Government are strongly committed to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Post Office. It is a national asset that provides an invaluable public service in all our constituencies. There are certainly challenges ahead, but we continue to work with the Post Office to ensure that it is fit for the future. We always welcome views on the network. I thank those hon. Members who secured the debate and all other hon. Members for their contributions.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Local Post Offices · Hansard source

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  I echo the thanks to the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this important debate. There have been some very clear and consistent messages from across the House to the Government in this debate, and I pay tribute to the passion with which hon. Members on all sides of the House have raised key constituency concerns, as the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) said. We have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd), for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman), for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke), for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) and for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards). I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Withington (Jeff Smith) has particular concerns about Didsbury post office. We also heard from the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) and the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young), and I know you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have concerns in this space, too. Post offices provide hugely important everyday services to millions of people across our country. Communities rightly expect to have access to those essential services, just as they would to a GP surgery, a primary school or neighbourhood police. That is because, as many Members made clear, post offices are the very beating heart of our towns and villages. As our economy has modernised and evolved, so too have our local post offices. Today they are so much more than a place to send letters and parcels. They act as high street banks, as many have said, as access points for some Government services, and as community hubs for an array of different activities, generating crucial social capital. Indeed, after the unearthing of the Horizon scandal, the nation’s unanimous support for sub-postmasters and their campaign for redress and exoneration shows how revered the post office and its workers are by the British public—by all of us. We are working as fast as we can to give sub-postmasters the compensation they deserve, and we are indeed exploring what further steps we can take. But since the end of June, in just the six months that we have been in office, more than 1,000 more sub- postmasters who are victims of the scandal have received compensation. The amount paid out in redress has increased by over £355 million, more than double the amount that had been paid out at the time of the general election. As of 3 January, almost £600 million had been paid to over 3,800 sub-postmasters across all four main compensation schemes. Also as of 3 January, the GLO—group litigation order—scheme had received 453 claims of which 370 are fully complete and the remaining 83 are being assessed for their completeness or undergoing a request for further information that would unlock a more generous offer of compensation. We expect then to have paid substantial redress, even if the claims are not fully settled, to the majority of GLO claimants by 31 March. But let me be clear: there are still complex cases to resolve and there is still much more to do in terms of compensation. The hon. Member for West Worcestershire, speaking for the Opposition, asked about Capture. We have identified a number of gaps in the compensation process. We published in particular the Kroll report into what had happened in terms of the Post Office use of the Capture software prior to the installation of the Horizon system. We are beginning to talk to sub-postmasters who used the Capture software about redress going forward so that we can design an effective redress scheme. The hon. Lady and the House may be aware that there are a number of cases where there were convictions that appear to relate to use of the Capture software by the Post Office that are with the Criminal Cases Review Commission at the moment. The hon. Lady also asked about the timing of when we might hear the Sir Wyn Williams conclusions. As she will understand, we as the Government do not want in any way to be seen to be rushing Sir Wyn Williams. We have heard a similar timescale as her—sometime later this year—and we will all wait with considerable interest for the conclusions. The hon. Lady also asked about the Ofcom consultation. I stress that it is still a consultation. Ofcom will be consulting for some 10 weeks and, as she would expect, we will be fully engaged in that process. On the future of the post office, we all know that our high streets have faced huge challenges in recent years. In some cases, the presence of a post office on a high street has been a game changer in driving footfall and attracting custom to other businesses. The public—as many Members have alluded to, it is often the elderly, those who use cash and those who are digitally excluded—rely on the post office for essential services. It is therefore right that the Government hold the Post Office to account to ensure that there is enough postal service provision across the country, and I recognise my particular responsibility in that regard. We protect the post office network by setting minimum access criteria. With a network of this size, we are likely to see fluctuation in the number of branches open at any one time, but crucially, the access criteria ensure that regardless of how the network changes, services remain within local reach of people at all times. The Government recognise the key role that post offices play in their communities and how branches in rural areas in particular often act as community hubs. We are listening carefully to stakeholders to ensure that the whole network, including those branches, is sustainable.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Local Post Offices · Hansard source

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  I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that we are where we are, and it is important that we move forward. I will come to the question of directly managed branches in a second. To ensure that we are planning properly for the future, we will publish a Green Paper before the summer to seek the public’s views, insights and experiences to help shape the future of the Post Office. In the meantime, we are taking steps to continue to support the network. Along with the annual £50 million subsidy, we have provided a further £37.5 million to support the Post Office network next year. Our thinking on the future of the post office will also be influenced by Sir Wyn Williams’s conclusions. We continue to support and encourage the chair of the Post Office, Nigel Railton, to shift the focus of the Post Office away from headquarters and towards postmasters. The Post Office, with our support, is reviewing its costs, as its financial position continues to be challenging. We are working with the senior leadership at the Post Office on future opportunities, beginning with banking, so that the company can increase its product offers and commercial revenue going forward. The Post Office has set up a new consultative council that will work with senior management on how these new plans are taken forward. It is a first, but none the less important step to change the culture of the Post Office. Building a sustainable future for the Post Office is imperative. It has had many false new starts. Nearly half of its branches are not profitable or make only a small profit from post office business. Postmaster pay has not increased materially for a decade. Mr Railton is looking to deliver a reduction in the Post Office’s costs and, as I have alluded to, an increase in its commercial revenues. He has also set out an intention to transform the service and the support that postmasters receive from the Post Office, which we have strongly encouraged. He has announced ambitions for a new deal for postmasters, and I am pleased that the Post Office recently made a £20 million immediate one-off payment to postmasters to increase their remuneration. On the future of directly managed branches, I appreciate that it is challenging for communities that lose their post office service. I speak from experience, having had Harrow’s directly managed branch close in 2016 and transfer to a franchise service instead. I am always happy to challenge the Post Office on specific concerns that Members have at constituency level. However, the Post Office operates as a commercial business, and the company has the freedom to deliver the branch network within the parameters we set. I know there is concern about the future of DMBs, and it is important to underline that no definitive decisions have been taken on the future of any individual directly managed branch. I have made clear to the Post Office that there must be discussions with unions and other key stakeholders. I am pleased to hear that the Post Office has seen positive engagement from independent postmasters and strategic partners, who have expressed their interest in taking on DMBs. It is encouraging that there continues to be such interest in the chance to run a post office.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have already met the hon. Gentleman to discuss some of the issues facing the high streets in his constituency. If he thinks I am the most appropriate Minister for that discussion, I am happy to make sure that it happens. He may actually want to discuss this particular issue with colleagues in MHCLG, whose attention I will draw to the question, because they and their officials are working much more closely on the implementation of the powers he mentions.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I commend Charlotte on her business. We recognise that we need to do more to help businesses like hers to be able to export more easily to Europe. That is why the Prime Minister has set out our determination to reset the relationship with Europe. We have made clear our plans to negotiate a phytosanitary agreement with the EU, which may or may not make an immediate difference for Charlotte, but there are other aspects of our plans to reset the relationship with Europe that I hope will help.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents will be concerned about the Bank of Scotland’s decision. He may know that more than 9,500 bank branches closed between 2010 and 2023. That is why the Government are determined to ensure the much more widespread roll-out of banking hubs, with a commitment to roll out 350 banking hubs. I strongly suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he get in contact with Link and Cash Access UK to make the case for a banking hub in his constituency. If I can help in any way, I will be happy to consider doing so.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Encouraging Entrepreneurship · Hansard source

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  I strongly support my hon. Friend’s substantive point. We are backing the Invest in Women taskforce, which was set up to increase the number of female-powered businesses. We are looking at how to increase significantly the proportion of investment going to all-female founding teams; it has been stuck at just 2% of equity investment in the last decade. That is one example of the things we need to change to help women-led businesses realise their full potential.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Encouraging Entrepreneurship · Hansard source

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  The Government continue to support entrepreneurs through, for example, start-up loans via the British Business Bank. We will publish our small business strategy later this year, which will signal a clear, overarching ambition to promote entrepreneurship, and will articulate a new vision for business support, built around the new business growth service that I have alluded to.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Encouraging Entrepreneurship · Hansard source

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  One thing we need to continue to do is make it easier for entrepreneurs in the hon. Member’s constituency and across the UK to access the finance that they need to set up their business. We have given an extra £250 million to the British Business Bank, which will help to ensure that more people have access to finance across the country, including in his constituency. We will publish our small business strategy later this year, in which he will see further measures to support entrepreneurs in Broxbourne and across the UK.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Growth Service · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman has always been a great champion of small businesses in his constituency and in Northern Ireland more generally. We want the business growth service to complement the support that the Northern Ireland Executive and the Welsh and Scottish Governments already give their businesses, to improve the quality of advice and support available to all businesses in all parts of the UK.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Growth Service · Hansard source

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  Small businesses are critical to our economy and to the future of all our communities. We will bring forward our small business strategy later this year to improve the environment for small businesses to grow. As part of that work, we are consulting widely with small businesses and other stakeholders on the design of the business growth service, which we will launch later this year.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Growth Service · Hansard source

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  I commend my hon. Friend on her support for the microbusinesses in her constituency. We want to get behind all those who are willing to take the risk to set up their own business. They help to make our communities more vibrant, they create jobs, and they generate the tax revenues that make our country stronger. The business growth service will be designed to get businesses quicker access to the support they need from the Government, such as applying for a start-up loan, access to training and management support and help with exports.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said only yesterday, we are driving forward planning reforms, boosting capital investment by over £100 billion over the next five years, and creating the national wealth fund. We are launching the business growth service and will soon publish our modern industrial strategy, which will be unreservedly pro-business. Business leaders, not surprisingly, have backed those measures.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  I think the right hon. Gentleman needs to check his sources for comments from business leaders. Only yesterday the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses were making very positive comments about our plans for growth, and last week, interestingly, PwC published its annual survey of global CEOs to reveal that Britain was the second most attractive country in the world in which to invest. That is something that I do not think the party opposite ever achieved.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her support for Rolls-Royce, which is one of our great British companies leading the way in many export markets across the world. Only yesterday I was discussing with the Minister for Skills our plans to reform the growth and skills levy to make it easier for businesses such as Rolls-Royce to recruit apprentices and find the talent that they need to continue to be successful.