Paul Murphy welcomed the FSB back to Wales after a 12 year absence. He welcomed the work of the FSB in Wales and mentioned that the Celtic Manor was an appropriate setting as a testimony to Welsh Entrepreneurship.

He told the FSB that 600,000 people are employed by small businesses in Wales. That accounts for six in every ten people in work. There are 195,000 SMEs, 98% of all businesses in the Principality. Small Businesses really are the back bone of the Welsh Economy.

Paul is from a family of Entrepreneurs and knows, as he travels around the country, that talking directly to business owners is vital to finding out what really affects their everyday lives. The key points he hears time and again:

Banks lending money: Increasingly, as the FSB motion shows, the public sector is expected to have a say in how our banks operate. There has been a complete change in attitude towards lending in the last 30 years. There was a time when borrowing money involved a half hour discussion with the bank manager.  Now leaflets are available in supermarkets and finance available within hours. The thing that needs to be pressed for now is balance, reasonable risk, and accessible finance. Businesses are encountering practical difficulties in getting reasonable loans from banks.

Prompt payment: It is important that Government and big companies pay to time. Preferably within ten days.

Improving Public Procurement:  More money needs to be available from local authorities and public bodies to small businesses. Cutting bureaucracy and improving information available locally about contracts is essential.  Local authorities have an essential role to play as a conduit of information and help for SMEs – such as rate relief, start ups, training, and employment.  There is a range of help available, £40 million of tax has already been deferred until a later date under new legislation.

Universities need to train Graduates to work in small businesses and to consider setting up in businesses themselves, locally here in Newport this is already happening.

20 years ago there were 15,000 jobs within a few miles of here, all in large businesses – coal, steal works, pharmaceuticals. Now only 1,000 of those jobs remain and yet there is still low unemployment in the area because small businesses with a wider diversity of jobs and ways of working have taken their place.

When tough times come we can withstand them better with a range of small businesses rather than one big industry in an area.

Small businesses in green and digital technologies are the future.

It will be a different world when we come out of the recession but we will survive.