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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I hope that employees feel the same way as employers. Another major problem is the way in which the scheme has been axed with no warning. That has had a negative impact on a variety of businesses. Last week, Meriden announced profit warnings, which are partly due to its significant involvement with the HCI scheme. On a smaller scale, I was contacted by a business called BizApp, which is based in Cheltenham and was expressly set up to help smaller businesses access the scheme. It now faces the loss of six jobs. It established its business because it identified precisely the same problem about which the Government are now talking: it is difficult for smaller businesses to access the scheme. It found a solution, by automating the process and providing the three-year warranty and support package that so many people found attractive and that small businesses could manage to administer. It wrote:"““We became involved in HCI in 2004 and realised very quickly it was impossible for the industry to bring HCI to the Small to Medium Business Sector because the process was still too complex . . . We therefore developed an online platform which automated the whole process. This was no easy task because it was necessary to ensure that all the relevant legislation was adhered to and the platform allowed resellers who use our platform to make substantial savings over the manual methods.””" The company was therefore clear that it had identified a problem and found a way in which to overcome it. However, it now faces making its staff redundant because the Government claim that there is insufficient participation from those on lower incomes and more deprived sectors. It is illogical that it cannot now participate in the process of helping people access the scheme. It is disturbing that the Government have taken so long to provide any indication of the mechanisms on which they will focus their resources. It is interesting that option 2 was rejected because it did not help people from deprived backgrounds. Option 3 announces all the savings and gives no idea of how the Government would target support. That is important because many businesses have invested in and built up infrastructure to provide the HCI. They could use their expertise and investment to provide the scheme to people from more deprived backgrounds, yet all elements of certainty for their business have been taken away. That will have an impact on their confidence to invest in any future scheme and future Government proposals.