Liberal Democrats Mean Business

Chair: Baroness Pinnock; Aide: Cllr Gareth Epps; Hall Aide: Lord Pack

Submitted by: 14 members 
Mover: Daisy Cooper MP (Spokesperson for the Treasury) 
Summation: Sarah Olney MP (Spokesperson for Business)

Conference believes that:

1. Business is Britain’s engine of national prosperity: it creates good jobs, fosters thriving local areas, drives innovation and helps fund public services.
2. Business is also the vehicle enabling millions of people to create something new, make the most of their own skills and talents and build a new community.
3. The Liberal Democrats are the natural party of business, as the only truly internationalist, pro-enterprise and fiscally responsible political force, advocating for a mutually beneficial partnership between the public and private sector.
4. Liberals have always championed free trade, fair markets and dynamic enterprise, while enabling people to have a meaningful stake in the rewards of economic growth.

Conference notes that:

1. Britain’s businesses have been failed by Labour’s two anti-growth budgets and years of Conservative Party mismanagement, culminating in the mini-Budget of 2022.
2. The Labour Government has saddled businesses, especially high street SMEs, with an unfair jobs tax and damaging business rates hikes.
3. Business is now threatened by Nigel Farage, who masterminded the shambolic Brexit deal and is more interested in cheering on Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff wars and promoting the interests of his bitcoin billionaire backers than backing British families and firms.
4. Barriers to accessing finance are forcing start-ups and scale-ups to go overseas to raise capital.
5. The UK’s tax system was not built for a modern economy of software, intellectual property and intangible assets, and it holds back innovation and companies with potential for high growth.
6. Tax compliance costs small businesses an estimated £25 billion a year, with the average firm losing 44 hours and £4,500 to form-filling.
7. Youth unemployment is undermining a whole generation, while sectors that provide many people’s first jobs, such as hospitality, are under mounting pressure.
8. Labour’s Employment Rights Act failed to strike the right balance, putting disproportionate burdens on businesses while introducing only limited improvements for workers.
9. Liberal Democrats secured a six-month qualifying period for protection from unfair dismissal in the Employment Rights Act, a fair and balanced result for businesses and workers.

Conference reaffirms Liberal Democrat commitments to:

1. Build an economy that works for everyone, fostering diverse business ownership models – including mutuals, social enterprises and community interest companies.
2. Tackle the productivity crisis by encouraging businesses to invest in training, take up digital technologies and become more energy efficient.

Conference therefore resolves to back British business to get Britain growing again, end the cost-of-living crisis and raise people’s living standards for the long term.

Conference further calls on the Government to:

1. Create a ‘one-stop-shop’ for businesses with government, by splitting the Treasury into a new Department for Growth and a Department for Public Expenditure; merging the current Department for Business and Trade into the new Department for Growth; and ensuring that businesses each have a single account manager, and that policies affecting business are aligned across departments.
2. Launch an ambitious drive to cut the bureaucratic burden on British businesses, especially SMEs, streamlining and consolidating regulation, providing better guidance and information through the Department for Growth ‘onestop-shop’ – while safeguarding consumer protections, workers' rights and EU alignment.
3. Conduct a rolling impact assessment keeping track of the cumulative tax burden on small businesses, especially those with high staff and premises costs such as hospitality, retail accommodation and attractions.
4. Create clear incentives for businesses to recruit and train young people, including urgently reinstating a lower National Insurance Contributions rate for part-time workers, including young people.
5. Improve access to finance, including by raising the Venture Capital Trusts limit and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme limit, which at £250,000 barely covers today’s startup costs, so founders can grow in the UK, not overseas.
6. Back innovative scale-ups by extending full expensing to intangibles such as software and intellectual property, and draw from the Dutch and South African R&D pre-clearance systems in which claims are assessed upfront by scientists and engineers, not tax compliance teams.
7. Commit to championing competition and regulatory changes to tackle high energy prices affecting small businesses, including making energy contracts more transparent and expanding access to the Energy Ombudsman for all SMEs.
8. Give workers a stronger voice in designing companies’ AIadoption policies, and in making the most of AI job augmentation, by championing employee representation on company boards for large and UK-listed companies.
9. Recognise the unique contribution of family businesses to long-term growth, noting their focus on long-term stewardship and community engagement, and ensure banks understand family governance models, so they can offer family firms the types of growth capital they need.

Applicability: England

Mover: 7 minutes; summation of motion and movers and summation of any amendments: 4 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see page 10 of the agenda. You can submit a speaker's card online here or in person.

The deadline for amendments to this motion is 13.00 Monday 7 September; see pages 11-12 of the agenda for more information.

Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily. The deadline for requests for separate votes is 09.00 Thursday 17 September; see page 9 of the agenda for more information.