Lord Londesborough (CB)

My Lords, I support Amendment 31 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, to which I have added my name. I also add my vocal support for Amendment 32 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, which I should have added my name to but did not. Both amendments concern the impact on SMEs. I am more concerned about the “S” part of that acronym, because medium-sized businesses with payrolls of over 100 staff are a lot better equipped to deal with the provisions of the Bill. I heard the Minister saying that only 10% of this group apply for salary sacrifice, which is a glass-half-empty argument. It is precisely because of that that we should be very concerned about the 90% who are missing out entirely on salary sacrifice. When we go back to Amendment 31 and look at the impact, the employment data this year for SMEs is utterly dire—on vacancies, payroll and employment, part-time and full-time. I will not go through all the data, but I remind your Lordships that only 10 days ago, the Federation of Small Businesses wrote a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer warning that one-third of its members are planning either to shut down their business this year or to reduce their headcount, and that should send a real chill down the spine. I simply do not believe that the Government understand what it is to develop and foster a thriving SME ecosphere, on which, at the bottom of the pyramid, our economic growth utterly depends. I therefore throw my support behind these two amendments.