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Davis Broadly In Favour of Later Staging Date for Smaller UK Firms

04 September 2012 (PLANSPONSOREurope.com) – Former shadow home secretary David Davis has said he is “broadly” in favour of a later auto-enrolment staging date for smaller UK firms.

This October large UK firms will begin the process of ensuring all eligible employees automatically become members of a qualifying pension scheme.

When asked whether he was in favour of putting back the staging date for smaller firms, Davis told PLANSPONSOR that he was supportive of moves to save employers money.

Speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountant of England & Wales in London yesterday (3 September 2012), Davis referred to the UK’s 4.5m small and medium size enterprises as the creators of the vast majority of UK employment.  

“The Budget still looks at the big companies,” he said. “They have got the biggest factories. They go on trips with the Prime Minister and sign huge contracts and make fantastic headlines.  

“The real action is in the 4.5m small and medium sized companies (SMEs) that create the vast majority of employment in this country.”  

The one-time Tory leadership favourite added large companies emphasis efficiency but for SMEs the target is exponential growth.  

“In my time working for a FTSE 100, we always increased the revenue and profits for pretty much every year but most of the time we actually ended up employing fewer people because we were on a continual drive for efficiency,” he added.  

“There’s nothing wrong in that. It made us more competitive but it didn’t create new jobs.”  

And Davis warned overregulation could prove SMEs ability to create jobs’ downfall.  

He said: “The value of small businesses is they create jobs and wealth. The problem is they are also much more fragile than big companies.  

“If they succeed their growth rates are astronomical but the very small companies can be killed off by a single employment tribunal case.  

“Above all we need to liberate that sector to create jobs and wealth and the biggest growth killer in modern economies is regulation.”

Graham Simons
editors@plansponsoreurope.com





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