Lord Ashcombe (Con)

My Lords, I had no intention of coming here today to speak until I had dinner last night. Having put in a day’s work, I thought it was time to come here and express an opinion. I would like to describe that situation last night. It follows on from a lot of what my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley said and the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor. This friend of mine, whom I have known for 30 or 40 years, is a small businessman in Bath, down in the West Country. He said to me, “Mark, we have a major problem coming. I have friends in similar places who run small businesses”—he runs a business of some six or seven people. “We are all talking together, because that is how we transfer knowledge, and the number of us beginning to think about throwing in the towel is significant. I want you to know about it”. If this change were to happen, it would affect the poor employees of these businesses. There is nothing inherently wrong with these businesses but there is, as we have heard, more and more legislation coming upon them. It is the employees who are going. The domino effect through local economies is too much for these businesses. These small guys have to employ lawyers, HR experts and so on. I work for a company where we have those in house. They are just getting to the end of their tether. They do not want to stop, but I hope that Amendments 205 and 207 will help prevent that sort of thing happening and another nail in the coffin for these small businesses, which are really struggling as they think about the hassle of going on.