Labour’s Umunna sets out stall to woo business
SHADOW business secretary Chuka Umunna has promised more help for SMEs, a state-owned investment bank for business and greater devolved spending power for the regions, if Labour wins the 2015 election.
Mr Umunna, 34, seen as a rising star of the Labour Party, was speaking at a dinner in north Manchester organised by local MP Iwan Lewis targeted at business people.
He said Labour would introduce a national Small Business Agency, based on the US Government’s Small Business Administration, to champion small and medium-sized firms.
On the question of funding he said it was “ridiculous” that the UK is the only G8 country without a state-owned investment bank to help remedy the problems many small businesses are facing accessing finance.
He refused to give what he said would be an “empty promise” to slash regulation and red tape, but pledged to prioritise the issue, arguing it the problem with regulation is often “more about quality than quantity”.
Although he refused to be drawn on any firm spending commitments a Labour administration would make, until before the next election, he did say his party would focus business support on sectors such as automotive, green tech and aerospace, which had alreay proved they could compete on the world stage.
“We will have difficult decisions to make on spending, there is no question about that. We are in different times to those when we entered power last time.2
Other pledges he made included cutting VAT and a National insurance holiday for small firms along with steps to improve the way universities commercialise new technologies, such as graphene, a new super-material discovered by Nobel Prize-winning scientists at the University of Manchester.
Mr Umunna, who practised as an employment lawyer before his election in 2010, said Labour’s policy on Europe was clear, unlike that of the Conservatives’.
“Does Europe need reform? Yes, but we believe that it is the country’s best interests to be part of Europe and negotiating important trade deals with emerging markets together, not on our own.
“The country is at a crossroads and I believe a different type of capitalism is needed. We have to stop being so London-centric and give the regions the tools and instruments to be masters of their own destiny. and we will give the LEPs the resources to do this.”
