A little more Vince Cable, a little less Osborne please

By Hamant Verman

With the coalition keen to promote its agenda for economic growth this month, it should listen to calls by SMEs for a bit more Vince (Cable) and a little less George (Osborne) as we approach the busiest time of the year for retailers — and to ensure the government's messages about the economy are more relevant to Joe Public than Hooray Henry.

The impression that I have gained from the public and from business people is that Britain has had its fill of Osbornics for this year and it is time to put business rather than high finance on the agenda.

Actually, it is time to talk about the things that Vince Cable was talking about after he joined the Cabinet and before metaphors such as Europe being stuck in a blazing house began to dominate statements by the coalition.

And when it gets to the stage that advisers and economists seriously theorise that warmer-than-normal weather or a keen easterly breeze is to blame for a lack of growth in the country, it is probably time someone swapped their briefcases for shopping baskets.

I am sure that most politicians feel helpless and a sense of dislocation when they tune into the news to learn about the latest saga in this global economic drama. After all, that is what reading too much about economics does.

But it must not disguise the fact that there are practical things they can do to help businesses in their localities through deregulation — and there is something they can do right now to prevent the implementation of a scheme that the Federation of Small Businesses has termed 'anti-growth'.

I was invited by the National Asian Business Association to attend a Local Better Regulation Workship (LBRO) workshop to build relations between ethnic minority businesses and regulators, such as local authorities. And there was no mention of Europe or Goldman Sachs — just some common sense ideas to cut business people a bit of slack.

For example, it is vital that businesses have a strong working relationship with health and safety inspectors. This is precisely why it is the wrong time to extend its current systems of cost recovery.

The Health and Safety Exectutive (HSE) wants to include a fee for intervention, where an inspector will charge for the inspection and any subsequent actions when a material fault has been found.

The HSE itself estimates that it will cost a business at least £750 for an inspection. Furthermore, those businesses that wish to challenge the result of their inspection may have to cover the whole costs of the dispute if their complaint is not upheld. You would never guess that the HSE is facing a 35% budget cut, hey?

The idea to extend charges at this time is like giving a business people a slap in the face with a sterilised glove.

Cable told Reuters on Monday that "They [European leaders] now see light at the end of the tunnel."

The bad news that he must now comment about in the UK was summed up by Sonia Brown, of National Black Women's Network, at the event. She said: "Small businesses feel they are in a hole and there is no hope of getting out."

But the good news is that Brown's comments were a reaction to learning about HSE charges, which Cable can do something about.

Targeting changes to regulation, especially HSE's £750 charge for faults found during an inspection, until things are better in the economy, would make a real difference in the real world.

Hamant Verma edited both the Asian Rich List and India Business Report for three years