Saqib Bhatti

I will speak about some of the hospitality businesses in my constituency, but I say to the hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) that that was an interesting speech; I do not think much of it was based in reality, however, and I am more than happy to explain. The Employment Rights Bill will cost £5 billion by the Government’s own assessment. The businesses that will bear the costs of that will then have to make cost-cutting measures, and it is usually young people—I trust her that it might be ethnic minorities who are at the vanguard—who are at risk. They are the ones who will suffer and lose their jobs, because those businesses still have to make a profit. I broaden my point out to the Government Benches. I listened to the opening speech by the Minister. It was sometimes an entertaining speech, especially when he took my intervention, but sitting here, I thought, “There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to make a profit and how important that is to businesses.” That is literally the reason people go into business: to make a profit and generate cash. The rise in national insurance contributions—the jobs tax—and the Employment Rights Bill, which will cost £5 billion, are costs imposed by the Labour Government. They made a choice to impose that on businesses. Hospitality businesses suffering at the hands of the Labour Government are having to make tough choices, and that means seasonal workers will not be employed, or not as many of them will be. We are already seeing that. When I quoted the chair of UKHospitality to the Minister, he denied that and said it was not happening, but the stats say something different. Over half of the jobs lost since the Budget have been lost as a result of Labour’s Budget. I have been speaking to businesses since then, including Visit Knowle, Eric Lyons and the Barn at Berryfields—these are beautiful businesses that we have. We have the National Exhibition Centre, which is a great importer of tourism and which the Minister spoke about, backed by Birmingham airport. We have the Greenwood pub, Nailcote Hall, Three Trees community centre—I could go on and on. There are huge numbers of hospitality businesses, but they are all suffering the cost of the jobs tax, which disproportionally affects them. It means that those businesses are not investing because they are having to save that money to pay the Chancellor.