This Saturday (2nd December) is Small Business Saturday!
This year the Green Party of England and Wales is calling for:
- Green grants: an extra £3 billion to help small businesses go greener
- A fair transition: help for small business to cut their transport emissions
- Employee wellbeing: measures including zero business rates for childcare providers
- Reform of VAT: to give small businesses a boost vs larger corporations
- Suspension of Covid repayments: to take the pressure of small businesses
Small businesses are the lifeblood of communities and help make our towns and cities diverse, distinctive and unique. Many businesses want to make a success of becoming more sustainable, but they need government to get behind them and offer the right support.
It is crucial that both national and local government help small and independent businesses to survive and ultimately thrive. The Green Party is calling for:
- Grants for small businesses to help them go greener. This would include investing an additional £3 billion in Green Transition Grants for small businesses to help them prepare for and take advantage of the opportunities offered by greening the economy. Analysis by the British Business Bank found that SMEs account for almost one third of all UK emissions and around half of total UK business emissions. The Government is currently providing very little financial support for small business in the transition to Net Zero. Despite Chris Skidmore’s Net Zero Review highlighting the challenges faced by SMEs, only small sums from the UK’s Shared Prosperity Fund have been channelled via local authorities. We need a competitively fair transition to net zero that benefits rather than hinders SMEs.
- Assistance for small businesses to decarbonise their transport needs. Independent traders and tradespeople need access to electric vans and other low carbon transport solutions on the same terms as large companies. SMEs face greater barriers to decarbonising their transport than do large businesses. For instance, they are impacted by market shortages of second-hand, low emissions vehicles which has meant larger businesses have been able to obtain suitable vehicles while smaller businesses have not. Greens want to see government offering information, advice and market interventions such as grants so that SMEs are able to obtain suitable vehicles and have the right incentives to overcome these and other barriers.
- Small business should be supported to improve employee wellbeing. Government should support businesses in making the wellbeing of their employees a priority. Measures should include exempting all childcare providers in England from business rates, in line with Scotland and Wales; and increasing employment allowance to at least £5,000 to help the smallest employers.
- Reform VAT to support small businesses. There needs to be a review of our VAT system so that it differentially supports smaller shops and businesses compared to larger and online businesses.
- Suspend Covid loan repayments. Similarly, Covid loans were a great help for businesses during the pandemic lockdowns, but repayments are now adding to the financial strain of the cost-of-living crisis. Repayments of Covid loans should be suspended to provide much-needed relief to businesses.
More information about Small Business Saturday: https://smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com/media-information
Promoted by Jan Davis on behalf of Broadland Green Party, a constituent party of the Green Party of England & Wales PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ