We will redistribute power to UK’s local communities: Osborne

LONDON: The UK’s Conservatives have promised small-business owners, many of them British-Asians, that their government, if elected, will offer them full support in every possible way.

During the election campaign, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has been able to sign up the support of small and big businesses to his party’s economic manifesto.Most of the British-Pakistani businessmen run small businesses and the Tories say they relate to the worries of the small businessmen, who, under 13 years of the Labour, were squeezed through too many regulations and taxes.

The shadow chancellor told this newspaper in an email interview that the Tories understood well that if there were going to be new jobs created, they would be generated by small businesses. “That’s why I have set this goal for the next Conservative government: to make Britain the best place in the world for starting and running a small business,” said Osborne, adding that his government would ensure access to finance for the small and medium-scale businesses.

He promises that his government will take action in its first Budget within 50 days of the election to get credit flowing to businesses with government guarantees. As a major attraction to the new business- owners, any business started up to two years after the election will pay no Employer National Insurance on the first 10 employees it hires during its first 12 months. Osborne lay into the Labour’s rule of 13 years and accuses the governing party of messing up the economy.

He said two thirds of all the new jobs created in the last decade, during the boom, were connected in some way or other to more government spending and much of the rest came from finance. “The Labour relied too much on debt ñ government debt, consumer debt, banking debt ñ as the foundation of an unstable prosperity,” the shadow chancellor said. He said Gordon Brown is wrong to impose a jobsí tax that will kill the recovery instead of getting a grip on government waste. “We need decisive action to restore business confidence and strengthen economic growth, that’s why the Conservatives have set out a plan to start reducing the deficit in 2010 by cutting the government waste.”

Trade unions and industry experts have warned that there will be widespread discontent as a result of the massive Tory cuts. They have warned that tens of thousands of jobs will go under the Tories. Osborne counters that by saying that any government will have to deal with the deficit. “If we don’t, we face higher mortgage rates and risk tipping Britain back into recession. We have set out some specific examples of what we will do. But as we tackle the deficit we have made it clear that we will protect the most vulnerable and leave no one behind. So, we will keep key pensioner benefits and keep tax credits for those on low and modest incomes. Only families on incomes over £50,000 will not receive tax credits.” He agrees that the British economy is on course to recovery but insists that “five more years of Gordon Brown will put the recovery at risk. David Cameron and the Conservatives will act now on debt to help keep mortgage rates low and get the economy moving.”

Osborne identifies jobs’ tax as the biggest problem for businesses and says it will kill the recovery just when we need businesses to pull us through. He disagrees with perception in some quarters that the Tories are the party of rich. He says that itís not about class divide but about the fact that we are in together and together we can fix the broken society. He says his party will help the downtrodden by redistributing power away from the central state to local communities, allowing charities, social enterprises and companies to provide public services, and devolving power down to neighbourhoods.

“The UK has the highest proportion of children growing up in workless households of any country in the Europe. In our efforts to help business and job creation, we will create a single Work Programme for everyone who is unemployed, including the 2.6m people claiming Incapacity Benefit who are not helped by the existing programmes. Over two years we will fund 200,000 apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships, 100,000 work pairings and 100,000 further education college places. Tackling entrenched workless-ness is a key part of our aspiration to eliminate child poverty.”