Speeches by McDougall.

“I do not think this is a live conversation at the moment.”

“It is a significant problem. I have heard from beauticians in my own area who feel that they are a good employer and give their staff and their salon all the benefits and security of income that you would expect, but they feel that they are being undermined by people who are not doing that. It is a significant issue. T…”

“It is certainly something that we can take away and look into.”

“Reducing regulatory costs was one of my top three.”

“Through consultation, we are going to try to do that in a way that minimises that regulatory cost. At the beginning, we spoke about the challenges that small businesses face, one of which is that customers do not have enough money in their pockets. I do not think we can separate people’s security of income and the mone…”

“I feel slightly like when I am telling my children the day before Christmas that they will have to wait. The Budget will come tomorrow, and there will be announcements on business rates within that, especially with regard to the permanently lower rate on retail and hospitality.”

“We will have to find out.”

“What was that, sorry?”

“The Treasury has said that as well as setting those rates, it will be talking about the wider reforms that are within its consultation paper—for example, looking at slab and slice, or improving small business rates relief.”

“Instead of having a marginal, banded rate, slab and slice is having it in just one block. These are issues that the Treasury has said that it is going to continue to work on. I would not take the fact that business rate reform is being done in stages as being an end of the story.”

“This time tomorrow, we will all either be in the Chamber or having just left the Chamber, where we will be talking about permanently lower business rates for retail and hospitality.”

“It is not just about those lower business rates for retail and hospitality. The cutting of regulatory administrative costs is significant for those businesses as well.”

“The Secretary of State, at the Committee the other day, gave the example of the £250 million that we cut in the last few weeks from the costs of directors’ reports for hundreds of thousands of small businesses. The example that he gave was of coffee shops having to do directors’ reports. It is not just about business r…”

“Again, it is not only about those measures. It is also about putting more money into consumers’ pockets. I have a frustration at times that those two debates take place slightly separately from each other. The only conversation is about what we are doing on insecure work and increasing people’s wages and standard of li…”

“We absolutely understand that things are incredibly tough for lots of small businesses, but, again, hospitality workers deserve security of income as well. We cannot separate issues of standards of living and people’s security of income from the wider health of the economy. Part of the reason why hospitality, high stre…”

“I would challenge slightly what you say. The Government’s whole drive towards net zero, and getting off the volatility of fossil fuels and the higher prices that they have left us with, is about lowering bills for all consumers, including small businesses.”

“We are working very hard to help the workers in Mossmorran.”

“Under the previous Government, we had occasional interventions to deal with the problem, but no attempt to deal with the cause.”

“For larger businesses, we have the BIC scheme, which the Secretary of State spoke about yesterday. Across the piece, with smaller businesses, things such as the market review that Ofgem is undertaking are aimed at helping all bill payers. Through the UK Climate Hub, we have a whole suite of advice to help people make e…”

“Again, that would be a matter for my colleagues in DESNZ, but I know that that is something that they intend to regulate. Energy brokers can be helpful to small businesses. They are another part of that professional service landscape that helps you do things that otherwise you would not have the time to do yourself.”