I share the view of other right hon. and hon. Members that this is a hotchpotch of a Bill that rather loses the focus on what it claims to be about in its title. In the limited time available, I shall rattle through a few key issues and spend a little time on the section that deals with pubs.
Let us remember that the Green Investment Bank has been a huge success. This bank, which was a direct result of Liberal Democrat policy, has invested £2.3 billion into the UK green economy, which then attracted a further £7 billion of private sector money. This means that it is already profitable. Considering that it was set up only in 2013 with a statutory purpose, the fact that it is being privatised now with such indecent haste really exposes the ideological decision making behind this rather than what the Green Investment Bank was set up to do. I pay tribute to my colleague in the other place, Lord Teverson, and congratulate him and other colleagues on inserting their clever initiative on special shares being looked after by green guardians. I ask Ministers to think about what message is being sent out by this Government’s record on hitting our climate change targets.
Small businesses are the driving force of our economy. There are 5.4 million private sector businesses and 99.3% of them are classified as small. However, there are not enough measures in the Bill, which is an opportunity wasted. I welcome the creation of the small business commissioner. It is vital for small businesses to have a champion with a statutory footing, but the reality is, unfortunately, that this commissioner has no teeth. Any recommendations for resolving complaints will not be legally binding. We believe that the commission should have real sanctions, particularly over late payments, where repeat complaints against the same larger companies should result in state-level sanctions or penalties.
There are a number of measures to widen the responsibilities of regulators and to ensure that decisions do not impact negatively on small businesses. Clearly, that is welcome, but the measures will have little real impact. Has any assessment been made of whether this will lead to a significant boost for small businesses, which is what we want to see? We also want to see greater use of the growth duty.
Apprenticeships, of course, were yet another Liberal Democrat flagship policy during the coalition Government. Conservative Members keep talking about “the Government” over the last five and a half years, but that is simply not honest. It was the Liberal Democrats who pushed the apprenticeship agenda, and it was the former Business Secretary Vince Cable who oversaw that policy and the creation of 2.4 million apprenticeships. We warmly welcome the decision to make it an offence to describe a programme as an apprenticeship scheme when it is not officially classified as one.
Late payment is clearly a huge issue for small businesses. In 2014 alone, £46.1 billion was owed in late payments, and that simply cannot continue. We need stronger measures to deal with it.
I agree with what has been said about public sector exit payments, but I should like to hear from the Minister why, given that local government workers, teachers, health workers, police officers and fire and rescue workers are included in the cap provisions, public financial institutions have been excluded. Fred Goodwin, former chief executive officer of the Royal Bank of Scotland, reportedly receives an annual pension of £342,500. The public will surely demand that banks that have been bailed out should be the first to be subjected to the cap.
In the limited time that remains to me, I want to say something about pubs. I declare an interest as chair of the British Pub Confederation. The confederation gives a new voice to pubs and publicans and enables them to stand up to the British Beer and Pub Association, which represents the interests of the pubcos. Its members include the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Business, the two leading small business organisations. We warmly welcomed today’s announcement of a U-turn on the disgraceful clause 8.12 of the draft pubs code, which will not now go ahead. It should never have been there in the first place, and where it came from we can only surmise, but I think that it must have originated from pubcos or their supporters.
What concerns us most now is the current proposal for the pubs code to allow a waiver for investments before someone signs up to a tenancy. That would clearly enable the pubcos to game the position.