This morning I spoke at a Progress business breakfast in Reading, where I asked a key electoral question to a room packed full of businessmen and women: what does business want from Labour?

Labour is engaging with businesses of all sizes across the country. Particularly as we look to the general election next year, we want to do all we can to listen to the concerns and insights of the business community. During Ed Miliband’s first conference speech as Labour party leader he said ‘I am determined to make Labour the party of enterprise and small business’. Since then Labour has had an ongoing dialogue with business, working together on solutions to the problems which millions of small businesses and entrepreneurs are facing under this Tory-led government.

As part of Labour’s policy review, we are undertaking the largest overhaul of our policies since the 1990s. This includes a comprehensive review of our business policies to ensure we can create a fairer, more resilient, inclusive and internationally competitive economy, investing for the long term. Business experts are leading the debate for Labour, and creating our winning business policies. Our parliamentarians, candidates and party members with business experience also strengthen the party, like Victoria Groulef (prospective parliamentary candidate for Reading West) and Chris Oxlade (PPC for Crawley) who also spoke at the business breakfast this morning – successful businesswomen and men who we need to win in their seats next year to be part of Labour’s majority in government and deliver on our pledges for business.  Labour is also working with experts like Bill Thomas (former senior vice-president and general manager, EMEA Hewlett-Packard) who led the Small Business Taskforce; Mike Wright (executive director, Land Rover) who is leading our review on supply chains; and most recently Bill Grimsey (former chief executive, Wickes) who is leading our High Streets Advisory Group.

With businessmen and women at the heart of Labour’s thinking, our challenge is to make sure we have the best policy solutions to support the sustainability and growth of businesses, large and small, which are the engines of job creation. It’s through seeing our economy grow and businesses succeed that we will see unemployment come down and our local economies thriving once again.

At the moment the reality is that so many small businesses are struggling against the rising costs of doing business. Business rates have risen rapidly this parliament because of high inflation, and more than one in 10 small businesses say that they spend the same or more on business rates as they do on rent. In fact, business rates have gone up an average of £1,500 under David Cameron, a reality that his rhetoric will seek to hide.

Labour will cut business rates in 2015 and then freeze them in 2016, saving small businesses hundreds of pounds. Labour has also pledged to: freeze energy bills which will save the typical business £5,000 a year; seek to end the lending crisis for business with a network of regional banks; be tough on late payments; and expand childcare so that would-be entrepreneurs, including female entrepreneurs, are not held back in the workplace. The cost of childcare has increased by a staggering 30 per cent under David Cameron.

Labour also knows that businesses want high-skilled workers, and so the next Labour government would boost skills so that businesses and young people are equipped with the knowledge and training they need to succeed, including skills to succeed in the digital economy. This includes ways of increasing work experience to help the next generation develop job ready skills. I remain appalled that the government made school-based work experience optional rather than compulsory in September 2012. Recently I revealed new research which found that an estimated 64,000 school pupils have missed out on work experience in the last year following this decision. David Cameron is kicking away the ladder for the next generation, when what businesses want is for teenagers to be ready for the workplace and ready for work.

Labour has been asking: what do businesses want? The response we have got – from consultations with entrepreneurs; policy reviews with business experts; and discussions with business MPs and PPCs – has been fresh, innovating and strong; and will form a winning manifesto for 2015.

———————————————————

Seema Malhotra MP is chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Business Interest Group and is member of parliament for Feltham and Heston. She tweets @SeemaMalhotra1

———————————————————

Photo: Russell Davies