Margot James addresses Black Country Chamber of Commerce (BCCC) Board

Margot James, Conservative Candidate for Stourbridge was invited with other Conservative candidates from constituencies across the Black Country, to discuss issues facing business in the Black Country and how Conservative policies will address those issues, with Chamber leaders at a meeting in Walsall yesterday.

The main issues raised by Chamber members were:

• The lack of trade credit insurance. The cost of credit insurance used to approximate to 1% of the value of a company’s debtors. That percentage has now risen to 4% on average and for significantly less cover. The BCCC called on Government to under write the insurance of credit insurance.
• Empty Property Rate relief. One of the worst stealth tax increases levied by Gordon Brown on business has been the removal of rate relief on empty properties. In the good times this was seen as very unfair and a dampener on the development industry. But in the current recession it is seen as the difference between success and failure for many companies.
• Too much money that should be benefiting business and employment is tied up in administration in Quangos like ‘Advantage West Midlands’ and ‘Business Voice West Midlands’.
• The skills and training deficit in the Black Country and the lack of support from government to help correct this problem. A problem made far worse by the terrible standard of secondary education in some schools.
• According to a recent BCCC survey fewer than 25% of employers in the Black Country felt Government funded training met the specific needs of their business, if it did, almost 60% would be prepared to pay up to 50% of the cost of such training.

Margot and her colleagues, Chris Kelly (Dudley South) and Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) set out Conservative Policy towards business, beginning on a realistic note.

The priority for a Conservative Government would be the restoration of trust in the country’s finances. This would involve spending reductions as outlined by George Osborne at the Party Conference last year. Tax increases could not be ruled out.

Margot said “We are all from a business background ourselves, we identify with the concerns of small, medium and large enterprises in the Black Country from personal experience. I welcome the fact that Conservatives will put training and employment to the top of the agenda with specific policies that:

• Will not implement the Government’s crazy tax increase on employment, the planned rise in National Insurance of 0.5%.
• A £2,500 subsidy for small to medium sized employers per apprenticeship.
• A ‘national insurance holiday’ for business start ups on their first ten employees for two years.
• A re-focussing of Train to Gain and New Deal budgets to get money straight to Colleges and employers for the provision of more apprenticeships, training places at Colleges, mentoring and work sharing opportunities.
• A reduction in the number of Quangos and the re-directing of the £300 million currently in the budget of Advantage West Midlands to Local Authorities for regeneration and to businesses direct.

Margot stated that she had been hearing complaints about the iniquitous removal of empty property tax relief ever since it had first been proposed three years ago. Margot said “it was one of the least justifiable stealth tax rises imposed by Gordon Brown on business and will be one of the first things a Conservative Government will put right when at last the conditions are right for reducing taxes.” BCCC leaders warned that some landlords will have to destroy buildings in order to avoid paying tax on them when there is no rent coming in against which the tax can be offset.