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Small Business

That is slightly off the subject that I am currently pursuing. I think that the hon. Gentleman refers to my speech on my ten-minute Bill yesterday, when I said that there should be a full impact assessment and a pilot with pre and post-implementation assessment before the right to request flexible working could be extended to all employees. I said that it would be beneficial to extend to the parents of children between the ages of six and 18 the right to request flexible working. If he reads Hansard, he will find that I quoted a number of studies into the beneficial effects that have been observed and measured by the Department of Trade and Industry and other reputable bodies, and other research. I want to touch on the issue of skills. According to a Federation of Small Businesses survey, 25 per cent. of the people who apply for employment in small businesses have problems with numeracy and literacy. The British Chambers of Commerce commented that 22 pieces of paper have to be completed for an individual to take part in ““train to gain””. We have to make education in numeracy and literacy easily accessible for people who do not have time to fill in paperwork. The FSB also discovered, in a survey of its members, that 35 per cent. of them do not employ anyone because of the perceived risks. The Government should simplify the work of employers and ensure that they are not burdened with being unpaid tax collectors and distributors of benefits or with other requirements. It is all too complicated. When I ran a business, I had to employ someone to do the wages because I could not cope with the complexity of having to do all that administration, which disproportionately increases the burden on small businesses. Will the Minister comment on the fact that some management courses are not available to companies of fewer than 10 individuals? Embryonic, growing companies that seek to increase their expertise and competitiveness should be allowed to access that kind of help. I have a shopping list of things that the Government could do to help small businesses. They have done some work, with public procurement, to simplify and standardise the procurement process, but they could do more to encourage local authorities to use the expertise of local companies rather than continue the current, slightly lazy, approach of seeking to do all their business with a small number of larger companies. If local authorities offered smaller contracts to more local companies there would be a much greater benefit to their local areas, because of the benefits that local businesses pass on to the local community, which I mentioned earlier. The hon. Member for Northampton, South talked about Government support. Some £12 billion is available, but small businesses have to know that it is there. An FSB survey found that 65 per cent. of small businesses were not aware of the R and D tax credit. Why are only incorporated businesses permitted to benefit from that tax credit? Time is pressing, so I shall rattle through my final points, the first of which relates to the compliance burden. Is it possible to review the regime for compliance, because intervention should be proportionate to the degree of risk and cost? We could shave a lot from the regulations. On inspections, why cannot certificates with a definable period be issued, so that a company knows that it will not be inspected again for a long time? Can the roles of many of the inspectors be merged, because sometimes there is a long line of inspectors trotting along to a small business? Can we change the role of inspectors? Can we move them away from having a tick-box mentality towards a more supportive role that enables companies to comply, rather than one that catches them out when they do not? Can more people who have business experience be involved in undertaking things such as regulatory impact assessments? The hon. Member for Northampton, South discussed the regulatory burden from Europe and gold-plating, and rightly acknowledged that we are doing this to ourselves, because although regulations are being handed down, we are making them worse. If people with real business experience, rather than Whitehall bureaucrats and lawyers, were undertaking the regulatory impact work, the Government would be in a better position to serve the interests of business.