The Shadow Business Secretary visited Nottingham today to urge shoppers to join a celebration of small businesses next Saturday, December 7.
Chuka Umunna was instrumental in bringing the Small Business Saturday initiative to the UK after its success in America.
The non-political movement – initially founded by American Express – is supported by more than one million businesses across the UK, a third of local authorities, more than 200 members of Parliament.
The national grass roots campaign to encourage people to shop locally and support small businesses in their communities is taking place across the country for the first time on Saturday.
Mr Umunna, who attended Nottingham Law School, which is part of Nottingham Trent University, was in Nottingham with Lilian Greenwood, Labour MP for Nottingham South, to promote the initiative.
He said: "Small Business Saturday encourages people to big effort on that day to spend their money with small, local independent stores and to celebrate the contributions that small businesses make.
"Small local independent stores add to the distinctive character of every local area. Running your own outfit is also a real vehicle through which people can meet their own aspirations and we therefore get a more socially mobile society, Many independent stores also innovate and do things differently which keeps the big chains on their toes and helps bring footfall to our high streets. Two thirds of private sector jobs also come from our small businesses."
Mr Umunna also said people can support the campaign by shopping online.
Discussing Labour's policies ahead of the next general election, Mr Umunna said: "One of the things which is really clobbering our small local independents at the moment are the very high business rates that people are facing.
"We have the absurd situation in the country at the moment where you have shops and small businesses that are paying more in rates than they are in rent and we don't think that is right.
"That's why we've said that if we're elected in 2015 we will cut people's business rates and we will freeze them in 2016. That will save the average business in this region £380. Obviously you would like to go further, but it's a good start.
"One of the things we would immediately do is the energy price freeze which would help a huge number of businesses – 2.4 million businesses have been clobbered by energy price hikes.
"The average saving for a small business from two measures we are proposing to do is in the region of £5,000.
"There are longer term measures that we need to sort out, for example, finance for businesses too. The Government has got its business bank, but we want to set up a proper British investment bank and on top of that a network of regional banks to ensure that the schemes that are available nationally get down at a local level."
Asked about regional development agencies, he added: "Not all of them were perfect but I think everyone recognised that they performed a very important function.
"The local enterprise partnerships that they have put in their place simply haven't been given the tools. We are inclined to retain those, but we would look to give local enterprise partnerships appropriate budgets and appropriate powers to do what's been asked of them."
