What Price Prosperity?

How fortunate we are in south Wiltshire that we enjoy a broad-based, prosperous economy and a high quality of life as well as a good standard of living. There is more to life then Gross National Product! We continue to have one of the highest levels of economic activity in the UK as well as one of the lowest levels of unemployment at 0.7%.

Over the years, through the ups and downs of the economic cycle, our economy has been robust. I have always been concerned about how we keep it that way. With the economy about to enter a difficult period, it is at the forefront of my mind to try and understand how we can maintain the feel-good factor in local life. Prosperity does not just happen. The plums of success do not just drop into our laps.

Proud tradition
For eight hundred years trade and industry have flowed in the blood of local people. Starting with wool from the Plain, agriculture dominated the economy. When the railways came, farming changed and new jobs were created. First markets and then shops thrived and legal and financial services followed. Ours has always been a classic wealth-creating economy, dependent on the enterprise and ingenuity of individual men and women prepared to take risks, back their judgment, lose their shirts.

In the nineteenth century prosperity dictated improved services in education, health and social services, paid for by taxation. Public sector employment was born. In the twentieth century, the military arrived in a new and big way, providing more and more jobs until today they are the biggest employers in our community (followed by health and education). That is primarily paid for by taxing private industry and the innovation of business and services. Thousands of our citizens go to work every day manufacturing, selling, inventing and researching. Old firms expand or reach the end of their life. Small firms are set up and grow - or perish. Large firms struggle every single day to compete locally, nationally and globally - or go to the wall.

Government knows best?
Life gets more and more complicated, government gets more and more restrictive and intrusive with health and safety, human rights and other, no doubt, worthy aspirations. In Parliament I am engaged, with my Opposition colleagues, in the struggle to find the right balance. In my opinion the nation's prosperity is at risk. Government 'take' in tax and regulation is out of kilter with our traditional enterprise culture in South Wiltshire.

What will happen if new small businesses are stifled at birth? How many jobs will be lost if our strong employers cannot innovate and compete? Then, how many jobs in the Civil Service, health and education will have to go because the tax revenue is no longer being generated to pay for them? I see signs of these pressures mounting now.

Which is why I think it is absolute madness for the Government to choose this moment to dismantle the one local service partnership whose sole purpose is to foster new enterprise. Not to subsidise it. Not to command it. But to teach budding entrepreneurs to write business plans, identify markets, cope with employment law and comply with regulations, local, national and European.

Small is beautiful
There is no doubt that small businesses matter. In South Wiltshire some 5,330 people are employed in firms of up to 50 people. Of those, over 4000 people work in businesses employing 5 or fewer people. There is no doubt that our local Business Link consultancy is effective. In the last year they have assisted 1168 established businesses and helped start up 66 new enterprises.

The Minister for Industry told me in May that pressure on their budget had led them to "simplify and deproliferate" business support. They have devolved responsibility for the Business Link programme to the Regional Development Agency, who have decided to cut the Business Link offices across the South West counties from 6 to 2. Unless a local rescue package can be put in place, Salisbury will lose our small, expert team when the office is closed next March. Our 'local' office will be in Bristol. Thanks for nothing, Gordon.

Teeth
My family always used local NHS dentists. Then, along came a subscription service favoured by our excellent dentist. He convinced us it was a much better deal all round. I think it is. But it is not cheap - and there are a lot of people who have limited funds for teeth. There is no doubt that we are short of NHS dentistry.

From April, our cash-strapped Primary Care Trust has been responsible for dentists, too. They tell me there are 16 NHS practices across S. Wilts and two NHS orthodontic practices - vital for the dignity and well-being of many children. We all (including the PCT) know this is woefully inadequate. Never fear - there's a 'review' going on. Whatever the need, the answer will depend on the local NHS's requirement "to reflect our statutory responsibility to achieve financial balance". Tell that to your weeping child!

Dig that train!

Last month I went to York by train for the General Synod of the Church of England. Returning to busy York Station for the journey south, I could not believe my ears. The arrivals and departures were being lilted delightfully by a siren singer in the manner of church psalms! Honestly! The new Archbishop, whose own Jamaican hymn, "Alle, alle, alle!" we had sung, with drums, in the Minster on Sunday, should be proud of her. Please can we bid to transfer her to Salisbury Station?

Robert Key MP
July 22nd 2006