PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

109 Debate on the Address
9 MAY 2012
Debate on the Address
110
of thousands of offenders on our streets for whom prison
is the best place. Importantly, if they are in prison the
public will know that they are being kept safe. Keeping
the public safe should be fundamental to any criminal
justice reforms we make in this Session.
We should also do more to support the victims of
crime. I have seen from the work I have done with
victims—let me refer hon. Members to my private Member’s
Bill in the previous Session on championing victims’
rights—that victims are fed up with seeing policy makers
and the courts focusing their efforts on appeasing offenders
instead of helping victims to get through the horrific
experiences they have faced. The former victims
commissioner, Louise Casey, did a good job of highlighting
this issue alongside charities such as Victim Support,
the National Victims Association and Support After
Murder and Manslaughter Abroad. The Government’s
response to the consultation on its “Getting it right for
victims and witnesses” strategy is due later this year,
and I very much hope that they will recognise where the
proposals need beefing up and that they will show some
flexibility and deliver the new and improved services
that victims of crime need. At the moment, my constituent
Marie Heath and her family are being subjected to the
horrendous ordeal of travelling to Germany every week
for the ongoing trial of the defendants alleged to have
brutally murdered her son. The family face huge logistical
challenges and thousands of pounds in costs. The
Government are aware of that case and I hope that in
the Bill they will learn from the experience of the
Heaths and many other victims of crime.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con): My hon.
Friend is making a powerful point about people’s need
to feel secure, to feel that sentencing is appropriate and
to feel that those who should be behind bars are. Does
she, like me, want the Government to take steps to
ensure that sentences mean that if someone is sentenced
to four years, for example, they serve those four years as
opposed to perhaps just two?
Priti Patel: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We
are talking about public confidence in the criminal
justice system, which should do what it says on the tin.
If an offender is sentenced to four years, the public do
not want them released within 18 months or a shorter
time. They want to know that the full sentence will be
served. This is a good opportunity for the Government
to restore public confidence in our criminal justice system.
I welcome the proposals the Government have outlined
to free up businesses and scrap costly and unnecessary
burdens on them. I refer to regulation. As the daughter
of a small shopkeeper, I have recognised throughout my
adult and teenage working life how important small
businesses are for jobs and economic growth. I have
also become very aware of regulation. As shopkeepers,
my parents have owned a range of small shops—post
offices, supermarkets and newsagents. We have been
through many iterations of health and safety legislation,
business and small shop regulation, Sunday trading,
opening hours and particularly employment legislation.
You name it, Madam Deputy Speaker, and we have
been there, seen it and done it.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the bedrock
of our economy. We were once described as a nation of
shopkeepers, but we do not feel like that any more, as
small and independent retailers are decimated in our
high streets. More needs to be done. SMEs support two
thirds of jobs throughout the country. In my constituency,
the figure rises to 83%, which is high and I should like it
to be higher. With greater economic liberalisation and
less regulation I am sure that will happen.
The ability of business owners and entrepreneurs to
create even more jobs has been compromised by the
unrelenting growth of regulation from both Whitehall
and Brussels. In 2011, 84% of businesses reported that
they spent more time dealing with legislation than in
2009. The annual cost to SMEs of that compliance is
about £17 billion, which is equivalent to the cost of
Crossrail, and 12 times the Government’s budget for
apprenticeships.
The Government are committed to the red tape challenge;
they have already identified more than 600 regulations
to be scrapped or overhauled. The sooner the process
begins, the better. Freeing business from the costs imposed
by regulation will allow them, importantly, to invest in
more jobs and economic growth.
I urge the Government to take more robust action on
EU red tape. For me as a new Member of Parliament,
one of the most disappointing aspects of EU regulation
was the enforcement in the previous Session of the
agency workers regulations, which unfortunately the
Government could do nothing about because the previous
Government had done the deal. That has cost business
£1.5 billion. Such regulations do far more to create
unemployment and block job creation than they do to
support workers’ rights.
In my constituency and throughout Essex, more people
are prepared to take risks and set up their own business.
As many Members may have seen in the news over the
past 24 hours, there has been a great deal of political
focus on Essex; one might argue that the only way is up
in Essex. It is indeed a county of dynamic entrepreneurs.
Many of my constituents are prepared to go out on a
limb and do the right thing, which is to take risks and
set up a business. In the county of entrepreneurs, there
are 6,000 new enterprise births a year. The figure is
high, and I hope that it will grow higher.
As the Prime Minister saw on his visit yesterday,
those wealth creators will be key to the future economic
success not just of the county of Essex but of our
country. By taking steps to empower them to create
more wealth, jobs and prosperity, we can once again
restore dynamism and strength in the British economy,
and as a country we shall start to regain our rightful
place in the world economic league tables. That is why I
support the Queen’s Speech and everything the Government
are doing on economic and regulatory reform.
9.14 pm
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con): It is an honour,
although a daunting one, to follow that excellent speech
by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti
Patel), who speaks with a wealth of expertise as both a
parent of young children, a job she juggles very well
with her other abilities, and an excellent parliamentarian.
She spoke about businesses in Essex, again with a
wealth of expertise as the daughter of shopkeepers, and
gave a thorough going over of the Queen’s Speech.
It also feels odd to speak on the first day of a
parliamentary Session. It reminds me of when I turned
up here in the previous Session hoping to make my