Thankyou, Mr Speaker
While I welcome the Government’s commitment in the Queen’s speech to reducing the deficit and restoring economic stability, I believe that one of the most important ways in which we can achieve those aims – by restoring growth – has been neglected.
To state the obvious - as Tories, we believe in lowering expenditure, reducing taxes, cutting red tape, rolling back the state and allowing enterprise to flourish.
And there are indeed several parts of the Queens Speech intended to reduce the burden on business by repealing unnecessary legislation and limiting state inspection of businesses.
I welcome them – and in particular, the decision to make it easier for small employers to hire and fire workers.
Employers hesitate to expand for fear of being unable to respond quickly to volatile markets.
And so, instead of taking on staff and making a bet that things will improve – a bet every entrepreneur in this country should be encouraged to make – our small businesses remain anxious and cowed by the knowledge that any termination of employment, however necessary, could be met with litigation.
With this Bill, that will change.
But…. it seems to me that as we give with one hand, we take away with the other.
At the same time as promising deregulation, we are creating new rights to flexible parental leave.
While such an idea would be admirable and compassionate in the best of all possible worlds, we do not currently inhabit such a world.
We are struggling with the worst recession this country has seen since the 1930’s.
We should not be shackling the very engine of our recovery with yet more employment rights, however humane they may appear, at the moment.
We should also dispense with the layers upon layers of public bodies duplicating the work of the Government and spending money we do not have.
On this note, what has happened to our much vaunted bonfire of the quangos?
We know that they represent unaccountable, expensive duplication of effort, and that taking their functions back into the departments involved will cost less and achieve more….
and yet they are taking too long and costing too much to close.
So far, only a quarter of those due to go by 2015 have gone - and our own Public Accounts Committee has noted that they have gone at almost double the ‘transition costs’ projected.
Others have simply moved their staff and functions to other departments and payrolls.
This is not cutting costs, nor is it slashing red tape.
Two years ago, the last Queen’s Speech promised an annual limit to the number of non EU economic migrants, with a commitment to reducing net migration back to ‘tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands.’
There is no new commitment to these figures in this Queen’s Speech.
And yet, in the next 20 years, immigration will account for 36 per cent of all new households in England.
Such an explosion in population without matching growth in our economy is unsustainable.
The new houses, schools, public services needed for all these families must all be paid for – and with what?
We must grab the nettle, and tighten up our borders – for the sake of all of us who live here now.
The new initiatives to create more employment, increase apprenticeships and work placements are warmly welcomed by business.
However, yet again, we are undermining our own efforts.
Our membership of the EU has directly affected our ability to climb out of the mess in which we find ourselves.
Our ability to employ our own citizens is compromised by the numbers of foreign workers allowed to work here legally.
Since the accession of the Eastern European countries to the EU in 2004, almost all the jobs created in this country have gone to East European migrants.
According to Migrationwatch, the high unemployment rate among British born 16 to 24 year olds appears to be directly affected by the influx of large numbers of capable workers willing to work for low pay.
Despite the claims of the last Government that immigration would increase our national prosperity, a recent Lords’ report found that there was no evidence that it had done so.
Add this to the repeated accusations that our young people are unwilling or unable to work hard and we have an intractable problem.
The newly re-elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced an investigation into why British jobseekers are losing out to foreign workers.
He asks why so many individual recruitment decisions seem to go against young Londoners.
He has promised that his enquiry will be ‘honest and unflinching’ – and it will need to be, if we are to rebuild a competitive workforce.
And finally…on the subject of the EU, which takes up so much of our legislative time, squanders so much of our national wealth and remains unaccountable in so much that it does…
I was relieved to note that our Secretary of State for Business, Skills and Innovation has experienced something of a Damascene conversion on this matter.
His drive to repeal some of the European social legislation, including the working time directive, in order to preserve the flexibility of our labour markets, is welcome.
His battle to fend off damaging rulings from the European Court of Justice on, for example, allowing workers extra time off if they have become injured or ill on holiday, is a valuable protection for our small businesses.
So are the regulatory and accounting exemptions for micro businesses.
But the very fact that these burdens exist at all is the point….
To those Europhiles who believe the Euro cannot survive without political union, I say this…
Sovereign nations cannot thrive under this level of interference.
It is time to repatriate our powers.
Let us rediscover the European trading bloc, which was always intended and leave the Eurocrats to their expensive, impenetrable and unending games.
For our economy to experience real growth and for business to prosper, we must cut the ties that bind us to this runaway juggernaut - and change the terms of our membership.
And for that, we need a referendum.