Lord Londesborough (CB)

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 12 and 26, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, to which I have added my name. I am also supportive of Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to which I should have added my name; I apologise for not doing so. I spoke in the previous group about pension inadequacy. This is especially true for employees in our start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs in general. So the exemptions proposed in Amendment 12 get my full support. I should declare my interests as a chairman, investor and adviser to a range of start-ups and scale-ups. There is an element of Groundhog Day here: some noble Lords will remember that I tabled a similar exemption on behalf of SMEs in last year’s NICs Bill. With the invaluable support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Kramer, we achieved a majority of about 100 on Report. At that point, we issued some fairly blunt warnings in relation to jobs; I am afraid that those warnings have been borne out by the employment figures, especially at entry level and in part-time roles among SMEs. These same employers, who are struggling both to create new jobs—look at the vacancy numbers—and to sustain existing ones, face yet more complications and costs in the area of national insurance contributions. Increased burdens at a time when we desperately need to generate per capita economic growth are not well timed. Some noble Lords will have read the recent letter a couple of weeks ago from the FSB—the Federation of Small Businesses—to the Chancellor of Exchequer. It made for particularly grim reading. More than a third—I emphasise that—of employers among SMEs plan either to shut down their companies or to reduce output due to higher employment costs, increased business rates and increased energy costs. If we want to protect our vital SME ecosystem, we need to stop punishing them—I say “punishing” because it is appropriate, as these are punitive measures—and complicating their business of employment. In the light of what I have just said, there is a clear need for a review of the impact of the Bill on SMEs, as is outlined in Amendment 26, which also gets my full support.