Andrew Rosindell

The right Member is, as always, completely correct. Our nation’s success is built on grassroots entrepreneurial spirit, not bureaucracy, corporate control or Government regulation—and certainly not Brussels interfering with our affairs yet again, after we had a referendum in which the British people voted overwhelmingly to get out of a political union with Europe. Now, the Government want us to have a pathway to growth, apparently through closer alignment with the European Union. We do not yet know what the contents of the so-called European partnership Bill will be, but it is bound to mean more powers being stripped away from this place and the British people, with the introduction of so-called dynamic alignment—the regulatory straitjacket that will be imposed on us by Brussels. As the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) said to the Prime Minister only last week, the Labour party’s solution to growth is to make the UK a subservient rule taker from a foreign Parliament. That is unacceptable. The socialist solution is always more central planning, more spending and more bureaucracy. It failed in the 1970s, and it will fail again today. What this country needs is not more Whitehall diktats or Government intrusion into people’s lives, but another 1979-style Margaret Thatcher revolution for enterprise—a period of national rejuvenation defined by cutting back state intervention and giving people back control over their lives. We must cut the waste and red tape strangling business, scrap IR35, and give our tradesmen, freelancers and small firms a fair deal again. We need to lower and simplify corporation tax to make Britain one of the best places in the world to build a business, instead of watching as the wealthy flee our shores. We must abolish inheritance tax, so that families can pass on what they have built through a lifetime of work. We must reform welfare, so that those who can work do work, but ensure that those who are vulnerable are genuinely cared for. We must reward effort, protect the vulnerable and, most importantly, bring back respect for the hard-working taxpayer. We need to cut waste, restore discipline to public finances, and spend where it helps working people and small businesses, rather than propping up the bureaucracy and needless white-collar workers. I want Romford to thrive again, but we can achieve that only if we stop treating small businesses like cash machines, and start treating them, rightly, as the backbone of our economy and the lifeblood of our communities.