Anna Soubry Is The Minster For Small Business. But Who Is She?

It is now just over a month since Anna Soubry, the MP for Broxtowe in Nottingham, was appointed the UK’s first minister for small business, industry and enterprise.
This is a landmark change – the job title of the previous minister, Mark Hancock, was simply minister for business and enterprise.
The move signals the government’s recognition of the importance of small firms, which account for more than 99% of all private sector businesses in the UK.

Instead of being subsumed into the SME strand, which covers a huge range of enterprises, from micro businesses up to those with 250 employees, small businesses are now seen as a discrete entity. As the new minister, Anna Soubry will attend cabinet meetings, giving this specific sector representation at the highest level.

Miss Soubry was first elected MP for Broxtowe in 2010. She read law at Birmingham University and was later called to the bar. She’s been a TV news reporter in Aberdeen and for Central TV, where she was also a shop steward for the National Union of Journalists. Miss Soubry worked as a criminal barrister in Nottingham and practised until she became an MP.

As a Conservative MP she has handled health, and later became the first elected female politician to be a minister in the Ministry of Defence. Along the way she has acquired a reputation for being forthright, launching an attack on Nigel Farage on BBC Question Time for his stance on immigration.
(On the Andrew Marr show, Soubry also said of Farage that he “looks like somebody has put their finger up his bottom and he really rather likes it”. She later apologised.)

Perhaps this outspokenness parallels her practical, down-to-earth approach on working life, once commenting that people should not eat lunch at their desks, but take the time out and eat elsewhere.

One of the key aspects of Soubry’s new portfolio is competitiveness and economic growth. She will also be overseeing the development of the British Business Bank, established to improve access to capital for smaller businesses.
Its Help to Grow programme, for example, plans to help fast-growing firms realise their full potential. ‘There are approximately 16,000 firms with high growth and annual turnover in the range £1m to £25m per year which might be suitable for growth finance’, says the Bank.
Other government initiatives, such as the Startup Loans Scheme, plan to give help and advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Although she has not made any major statements as the small business minister, Miss Soubry’s voting record in Parliament reveals her stance on several business issues. She supported a cut in the rate of Corporation tax and voted for local councils to retain the money they collected through business rates in their area. She said she’s in favour of the HS2 rail link, but is critical of the lack of a consultation process.
Miss Soubry has voted for employee shareholders, where staff receive a stake in the company, but then have to agree to a different set of employee rights
On social issues, she is a strong supporter of equal gay rights and of marriage for people of the same sex.

We do not have a crystal ball to predict her ministerial statements, but given Miss Soubry’s background, maybe we could expect her to:

• Bring a greater awareness of regional business needs, shifting the focus away from London and the South East, so that growth is spread evenly across the country
• Act on improving access to finance, and focus on boosting productivity and competitiveness
• Examine how to make it easy to conduct business for smaller firms, and reduce the costs of doing so. (For example, one of the elements of the Enterprise Bill before Parliament is the setting up of a Small Business Conciliation Service to settle business-to-business disputes.)
• Look at transport and communications and how they affect the work of small businesses
• Look at employment law and relationships with the trade unions

Of course, it’s early days, but as a small business what would you like the new minister to make her first priority?

Author: InkSmith