Legislative Reform

Touché! It is 15 all. What I am trying to say is that I can understand what is behind the thrust towards the regulatory reform in question. On the subject of creditors, I was interested to hear a number of the exchanges about the little person—the small to medium-sized enterprise that finds that when another firm falls through, it is likely to be the body that loses the money. As my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) said earlier, there is a knock-on effect. Clearly, if a firm falls through, it could take other firms down with it. I am sure that that happens more than regularly. The important thing is that we get the information out to creditors, but we also need to look at the whole issue of creditors to make sure that it is not the small to medium-sized enterprise—the small person, the one-man band, the small partnership—that loses out every time. The SME should get its fair share. If other people get 10p in the pound, why does the SME get nothing? We need to look at the issue again, and now is the appropriate time to do so, what with the recession and 85 small businesses falling through every day. That is a phenomenal number. It means that there are a lot of firms going out of business, and a lot of creditors who will need the information about those firms falling through, so that they can put in their claims. I was surprised to hear about insolvency practices charging £700 an hour. If they do, or if the amount is anywhere near that, we need to look into the matter. We should worry about not the £600 that goes to two local newspapers, but the thousands of pounds that go to insolvency practitioners. That is clearly the business to be in. If we cannot be in banking and pay ourselves huge bonuses, we should be insolvency practitioners. There must be a little list of these top jobs. I am shocked to hear that that is what insolvency practitioners charge. Clearly, if they charge that sort of money, it means that the money is not getting through to the right people, which is those in the SME sector, who are spending a lot of cash in the meantime. We are considering one narrow issue—businesses falling through—but as I recall, when I applied for an off-licence for my shop, we too had an obligation to advertise in local papers. I suspect that the same is true for planning applications. Does the order mean that the Government are considering all those instances, too? If they say that in one narrow area—in cases in which businesses fall through—it is unnecessary to advertise in two local newspapers, and that obligation is to go, I suspect that every Department will consider the issue, because the order will be a precedent. If the Minister is saying that trading has changed, I agree, but if the obligations are to disappear for one section of people, clearly the same will happen somewhere else, too. That brings me on to newspapers, which are going through a tough time. Many of them face annihilation: circulation figures are going down and, at the same time, advertising revenues are disappearing. All that the measure will do is make the situation worse. Some of the businesses that might go bust that would normally have an obligation to advertise are newspapers themselves—at least the London Gazette will get an advertisement out of the measure—so they will not be around to take such advertisements. We need to look at the usefulness of local newspapers. I said that many of them are available online, but some failed when they were making money to invest in their online services. I suspect that many of them wish that they had done so, as many newspapers, whether national, regional or local, are going online and spreading their advertising on the internet. I think that that is great, because people who have moved away from their local area can find out what is going on there and, indeed, read the classifieds. Newspapers need time, however, to make that investment, so if we vote on the issue, I would delay or defer the measure for five years, so that local papers have an opportunity to reform and to make the investments necessary to ensure that they are up to date. In 20 years' time, many youngsters may not buy papers at all, as they will get everything online. With the iPhone, the BlackBerry and mobile wi-fi, they can download stuff, so the big question will be whether we will need to buy hard copies of newspapers. We like to do so, as it is a traditional thing for us—I love to buy newspapers and make marks on them—but will the youngsters of tomorrow feel the same?