Liberal Democrats Mean Business

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

Motion as passed by Conference

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.
5. Given the appropriate regulatory framework, business can play a crucial role in delivering public goods, including tackling the climate and nature emergencies.
6. People who own and work in small and micro-businesses are workers too; many take a low or unreliable income, particularly when their business is in its early years or facing challenges often caused by global factors, while still carrying responsibility for their employees and the costs of keeping the business running, and their circumstances should be properly considered when employment, tax and benefits policies are developed.

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.
10. That the UK’s green and net-zero economy, valued at £105 billion in Gross Value Added, is currently expanding at more than triple the growth rate of the wider UK economy and could deliver even faster growth and prosperity.

Conference reaffirms Liberal Democrat commitments to:

1. Build an economy that works for everyone, including by broadening ownership and economic power through employee ownership, mutuals, co-operatives, community businesses, social enterprises, community interest companies and locally rooted finance.
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. Task the Department for Growth with producing a revised industrial strategy that places a higher priority on supporting zero-carbon, renewable and resource-efficient businesses, including through innovation support, public procurement policy, tax incentives and other measures.
3. 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 ‘one-stop-shop’ – while safeguarding consumer protections, workers' rights and EU alignment.
4. 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.
5. Give higher consideration to the impact of government policy on the owners of small and micro-businesses by:
   1. Taking account of the cost and cash-flow impact of statutory employment obligations when assessing the burden on small businesses.
   2. Reviewing the support that is available to the small employers when long-term staff absence or other statutory employment costs put an otherwise viable business at risk.
   3. Reviewing how low-income owner-directors and self-employed people are treated under Universal Credit, so that policy reflects the income they actually receive rather than income they are assumed to have.
   4. Take into account when developing employment, tax and benefits policy that small business owners are not only employers but people who work in those businesses and depend on them for their own income.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Give workers a stronger voice in designing companies’ AI adoption policies, and in making the most of AI job augmentation, by championing employee representation on company boards for large and UK-listed companies.
11. 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.
12. Replace the broken business rates system with a Commercial Landowner Levy, ensuring that high streets everywhere in the UK are protected; scrap the Labour Government’s unfair changes to Agricultural and Business Property relief and introduce an active family farm test, so that no active family farm or business is unfairly penalised.

Applicability: Federal

Motion prior to amendment

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: Federal

The Conference Committee agreed to make the following drafting amendment to the motion:

Delete lines 48–50 and insert:

1. Build an economy that works for everyone, including by broadening ownership and economic power through employee ownership, mutuals, co-operatives, community businesses, social enterprises, community interest companies and locally rooted finance.

Amendment One

PASSED

Submitted by: 12 members
Mover: Chris Bowers 
Summation: To be announced

After line 15 insert new E.: 

1. Given the appropriate regulatory framework, business can play a crucial role in delivering public goods, including tackling the climate and nature emergencies.

After line 46 insert new x): 

1. That the UK’s green and net-zero economy, valued at £105 billion in Gross Value Added, is currently expanding at more than triple the growth rate of the wider UK economy and could deliver even faster growth and prosperity.

After line 65 insert new 2.:

1. Task the Department for Growth with producing a revised industrial strategy that places a higher priority on supporting zero-carbon, renewable and resource-efficient businesses, including through innovation support, public procurement policy, tax incentives and other measures.

Amendment Two

PASSED

Submitted by: Kingston Borough
Mover: Cllr Jo Barker
Summation: Mary Reid

After line 15 insert new E.: 

1. People who own and work in small and micro-businesses are workers too; many take a low or unreliable income, particularly when their business is in its early years or facing challenges often caused by global factors, while still carrying responsibility for their employees and the costs of keeping the business running, and their circumstances should be properly considered when employment, tax and benefits policies are developed.

In line 73, after ‘cumulative’ insert ‘, employment and regulatory’

After line 75 insert new 4.: 

1. Give higher consideration to the impact of government policy on the owners of small and micro-businesses by:
   1. Taking account of the cost and cash-flow impact of statutory employment obligations when assessing the burden on small businesses
   2. Reviewing the support that is available to the small employers when long-term staff absence or other statutory employment costs put an otherwise viable business at risk.
   3. Reviewing how low-income owner-directors and self-employed people are treated under Universal Credit, so that policy reflects the income they actually receive rather than income they are assumed to have.
   4. Take into account when developing employment, tax and benefits policy that small business owners are not only employers but people who work in those businesses and depend on them for their own income.

Amendment Three

PASSED

Submitted by: 12 members
Mover: Cllr Kate Mansfield 
Summation: To be announced

After line 102, insert new 10.: 

1. Replace the broken business rates system with a Commercial Landowner Levy, ensuring that high streets everywhere in the UK are protected; scrap the Labour Government’s unfair changes to Agricultural and Business Property relief and introduce an active family farm test, so that no active family farm or business is unfairly penalised.