Kevin Hollinrake

I would not necessarily say “following the election”, but, generally, we should be very positive about our economy. I set out earlier some of the economic conditions that would make it conducive to invest in the UK, and we should be proud of that situation. I welcome the Minister’s comments about the change of priorities of the British Business Bank, specifically in relation to the pathfinder initiative. That piece of work was started by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies) when he was in the Treasury. Again, that will help to ease the flow of finance into our SMEs. As I look, with a mixture of sadness and joy, at the now redundant Conservative party manifesto, I can see that there were some really positive ideas in there about easing finance for SMEs. In particular, I am referring to things such as regional mutual banks, which is a policy that the Labour Government should adopt, and the open finance and smart data revolution for our economy, which could transform the opportunities of SME finance, making it much easier for SMEs to shop around. However, the key thing that I would reiterate to the Minister and her team is that they need to make sure that we have stability in terms of not just work, but business taxation, capital gains tax, and business relief. I say no to a jobs tax, but, yes to stability and business taxes. I say no to taking us back to the 1970s, by giving unions more power, no to doom and gloom, and yes to a positive and optimistic view of the UK’s future in the world.