Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have spoken to entrepreneurs who have told me that the tax and regulation burdens that have grown so much under Labour are holding them back.

The result of this is Britain has become less competitive and a less good place to grow a business. The Government’s recent proposal to raise capital gains tax is a prime example.

It is then no surprise to see that the UK has slipped from 2^nd to 9^th place in the international competitiveness league. With Britain’s economy is relatively deteriorating and Gordon Brown failing to prepare the economy for the long term, things could get worse still.

Yesterday, George Osborne launched a report providing a blueprint for making Britain the enterprise capital of the world. The report was commissioned by the Conservatives and produced by independent experts.

It calls for simpler taxes, lower Corporation tax rates, more incentives for reinvestment, mentoring systems for young entrepreneurs and a national system of ‘Dragons’ Dens’.

The day before Alan Duncan announced a new deregulation review headed by Sir David Arculus, which includes the former chief executive of the FSA, John Tiner.

Instead of encouraging our enterprise culture to flourish, tax and regulation is causing lasting damage. The business community is crying out for change. As this report shows, a Conservative government could create a better climate for enterprise – the ingredients and remedies are clear.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times businesses have told me that they are fed up with constant Government interference, regulation and red tape. And who can blame them? 

There have been more than 14 new regulations every working day under Labour. It is estimated that the cost of new regulations on business over the past decade has now topped £56 billion. This means that the average British company has to spend £14,270 a year implementing new legislation. 

The result of this extra burden is that Britain has become less competitive and a less good place to do business. It is then no surprise to see that the UK has slipped from 2^nd to 9^th place in the international competitiveness league.

I was however even a bit cautiously optimistic when Gordon Brown announced the legislative and regulatory reform bill last year. This bill, according to the Prime Minister, would contain ‘radical proposals for changing the way we regulate.’ 

However, the Financial Times reported this week that the law has yet to cut or even amend a single regulation! In fact the Treasury actually increased red tape by 7%. It is yet another example of the need for central power to be dispersed to a more local level. 

Regulation has grown over many years, but it now infects our lives inordinately. However, if we are to deal with it we have to tackle the culture of risk aversion which has so crept into our national life, including hanging baskets falling and grave stones toppling over. As they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.   

In all the excitement of this week’s revelations, it seems that David Cameron’s profoundly important speech at the CBI’s annual conference has been insufficiently noticed. At a time when relations between the Government and UK plc is at an all time low, British business leaders were treated to a small preview of the likely battle lines over the economy over the next few years.

In his speech, David Cameron caught the changing mood of the country. At a time when the Government is increasingly being viewed as untrustworthy in the eyes of the British public, David Cameron launched his ‘big change’ agenda. He criticised the Government for being too big, too bossy and too bureaucratic. With British businesses being burdened with £55bn of regulatory costs, I would be surprised if anyone at the conference disagreed with him.

This analysis was similar to Peter Oborne’s excellent comments in the Daily Mail last Saturday. People are now beginning to question the role and size of the state. It is becoming obvious to more and more people that big government and centralised bureaucracies are not only incompetent but also untrustworthy.

Gordon Brown likes to control everything. Yet as the Government goes from one crisis to another, people’s belief in the power of the state has been diminished. David Cameron this week set out an alternative philosophy. Power needs to be dispersed to a more local level.

Big government is increasingly no longer being seen as the cure all for the nation’s ills. Quite the reverse.
 

Art and beauty don’t usually appear in the same sentence as corporate and funds. Many see them as two distinct and irreconcilable spheres.

Much has changed, however, in recent times. Modern art is now very much a thriving business thanks, in some part, to the partnerships which fostered during the Nineties between artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and other Young British Artists and shrewd business-minded gallery owners and dealers such as Charles Saatchi and Jay Jopling. Evidence that this particular art bubble is very far from bursting was shown this week when Lucien Freud became the world’s most expensive living artist selling his portrait of his friend Bruce Bernard for £7.62 million. This record only lasted a single day until Damien Hirst sold his Lullaby Spring pill cabinet for £9.6 million at Sotheby’s.

Taken in context with the prices achieved this year for legendary names such as Warhol, Rothko and Bacon, and I am sure many investment funds that focus on art as a commodity will rubbing their hands with glee. At the end of May there was a conference at the London Business School devoted to treating art as a serious alternative investment option and highlighting its strong performance in recent years. Yet those who have invested will almost certainly bear in mind the sharp correction that came at the end of the dotcom boom. The question is – will they diversify at the right time or leave it one auction too late? Perhaps there will never be a real answer!

Yesterday afternoon the Business Relations initiative of the Conservative Party hosted a seminar for the representatives of the construction and property industries, specifically trade organisations. They represented a comprehensive cross section of the whole spectrum of the industry.

It was highly instructive. We have tried to begin a process of engaging with British businesses and commerce to learn of their challenges and to be able to absorb these for policy consideration. Property and construction is a huge business, a substantial employer, and with highly valued expertise abroad. One of the key issues raised was the skills shortage.

It is also pretty clear how fed up people are with the Government, almost in every sector of our national life. It is up to us to listen and learn, and do better when we get the chance.

Ukraine is going through a difficult phase politically at present, with conflict between the President and Prime Minister. Ukraine is certainly not the only country where the two top politicians in government cordially dislike each other!

The Orange Revolution excited the imagination of the democratic world. However Ukraine is split in varying degrees between those who look westwards towards Europe and NATO and those who wish to be more accommodating to Russia. The country is rich in natural resources and strategically is vital as so much of Europe’s energy supplies transit through Ukraine.

It is hugely important that the country succeeds, and Ukrainians look to us, of all the countries of Western Europe to support them. Many thousands now live here or have established business connections here.

Last night we launched the British-Ukrainian Society – 250 people came, and there is much enthusiasm. I am the new chairman. There are already many organisations in this country linked to Ukraine, but we hope to provide an umbrella organisation for these links. Whether it is political, business, cultural or educational, we shall try to strengthen the bonds between the two countries.