The Tories 'small business balance sheet'

The Conservative Party has outlined its plans for businesses - with a special section on small firms - in its 'Action for Business' manifesto.

The package includes a ten-point action plan and a 'Small Business Balance Sheet'. The Small Business Balance Sheet claims to summarise key economic and business policies, and enables businesses to identify the essential difference between Labour and the Conservatives.

As part of the general package, the manifesto cites the introduction and extension of IR35 as one of three examples of tax burdens on business. Although it stops short of restating any commitment to abolish the measure.

Under the main 10-point plan, a Conservative government claims it:

• would rejuvenate the Department of Trade and Industry to become a champion for British business;
  
• replace Labour's 'better regulation' with genuine deregulation;
  
• create a business-driven skills agenda;
  
• lower taxes and aim to create a fairer;
  
• simpler tax system; and take robust action to reduce business crime and the cost of the blame and claim culture.

Small Business Balance Sheet

The manifesto devotes a section (page 8) to small businesses by comparing and contrasting the opposing parties' policies towards SMEs.

It lists the 'Assets with Conservatives' and the 'Liabilities with Labour'.

Assets with the Conservatives

• Less Regulation Cutting existing regulation: implementing over 60 deregulatory measures as a priority. Stopping more regulation: Introducing Sunset Reviews for new regulation; ending gold-plating of European legislation; and imposing strict regulatory budgets on government departments.
  
• Lower taxes: Delivering lower taxes and value for money, cutting taxes by £4 billion and avoiding Labour's third-term tax rises.
  
• More police: Taking small business crime seriously, with an additional 40,000 police and tougher sentencing. We will not treat shoplifting as equivalent to a parking offence, and we will review crime statistics with the option of treating retail crime more prominently.
  
• Small Business Exemptions Granting exemptions on regulations that are overly burdensome and unsuitable for small businesses.
  
• More Skills: Supporting more vocational and skills-based training to meet the needs of business.
  
• Flexible Employment Market: Scrapping Labour's mandatory '1,2,3' dispute resolution procedures and reviving the UK's opt-out from the job-destroying Social Chapter.

Liabilities with Labour

• More regulation: New regulation under this Government has already cost British business nearly £40 billion, according to the BCC. If re-elected, Labour will continue the trend which has seen 15 regulations imposed every day since 1997.
  
• Higher taxes: £11 billion more tax, according to the IFS, and yet more increases in National Insurance Contributions.
  
• More crime: Business crime treated as 'victimless', with authorities unwilling and ill-equipped to act. Shoplifting treated the same as a parking offence with the introduction of fixed penalty notices.
  
• All businesses treated the same: Labour will continue to see exemptions as meaning 'ghettos of bad employment practices'.
  
• Skills gap: Universities unable to keep science departments and courses running due to a lack of government support.
  
• Rigid Labour Market: Yet more employment regulation. Labour supports the Temporary Agency Workers Directive, which the CBI said will 'extend labour market rigidity', and its MEPs want our opt-out from the Working Time Directive scrapped.

Full details of Action for Business, including the Small Business Balance Sheet, are available here