Most recent speeches:
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Peace Symposium : Speech addressed to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association
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Ahmadiyya Muslim Association Peace Symposium
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Financial instability and the impact on the real economy - September 5th 2007
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The Single Market Review 4th September 2007
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| SPEECHES IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT |
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Thursday, 1 February 2007 : The European private company statute
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Madam President, I find this absolutely fascinating! Every time I come here I have to smile. What this place knows about running small businesses is absolutely unbelievable. When I look up the CVs of Members of this Parliament, I find that nobody has ever had any serious responsibility for a small company in their lives. It is amazing what we all know about these things!
In 1992 I started a small business. I thought about it and I bought some old-fashioned, second-hand furniture. I sucked my pencil and thought, ‘My goodness me, what have I done? I have left a big corporation, where do I go from here?’. That business now has branches in Hong Kong, Jersey, the Channel Islands and South Africa, as well as London and York, which is my constituency.
I really do not think I could do that again. There are so many regulations, it is unbelievable. If you really want to fire up small business in the European Union, and particularly the United Kingdom, I would suggest that these people here and the Commission get their blasted noses out of everybody else’s business and stop trying to tell us how we should run our businesses! Just let us get on with it, because if you do not, more and more businesses are going to go to Dubai, Bermuda and the Channel Islands – I am moving half my business to the Channel Islands as it is.
I would counsel you and the Commission to please keep your ill-informed noses out of small businesses! |
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