Labour promises help for small firms with business rates, late payment and funding

The small business-focused measures included in the Labour Party's manifesto have been confirmed as those revealed in the earlier leaked document.

Put your questions to candidates and spokespeople from the main political parties at Enterprise Nation's free General Election small business debate in London on 18 May. Book your place here.

Speaking in Bradford on Tuesday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the For Many, Not the Few manifesto "is a draft for a better future for our country. It's a blueprint for a better future. This is a manifesto for all ages."

In a section in the document on measures for small companies, Labour says: "Our small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of our economy, providing 60% of private-sector jobs.

"Technological changes, like the spread of digital manufacturing and rapid communication, mean smaller, faster businesses will be the future of
our economy.

"Yet this Conservative government has taken small businesses for granted. Labour is the party of small businesses. We understand the challenges our smaller businesses face."

As revealed in a leaked draft version of the document last week , Labour has pledged to do the following for small businesses:

• National investment bank and regional development banks to identify where SMEs need funding

• New Scottish Investment Bank with £20bn of funds for local projects and small firms

• Reinstate the lower small-business corporation tax rate

• Introduce business rate reforms including switching from RPI to CPI  indexation, exempting new  investment in plant and machinery  from valuations, improving the appeals process and reviewing t he entire business rates system " in the longer run"

• Review extending the £1,000 pub relief business rates scheme to small music venues

• Scrap quarterly tax reporting for businesses with a turnover  of under £85,000

• Ensure that anyone bidding for a government contract pays its own suppliers within 30 days

• A version of the Australian system of binding arbitration and fines for persistent late-payers

• Bring forward legislation to create a "proper" legal definition for co-operative ownership

• Aim to double the size of the co-operative sector in the UK

• Digital Ambassador to promote Britain as an attractive place for investment

• Support for start-ups to scale-up

• Deliver universal superfast broadband by 2022, improve mobile internet coverage and expand provision of free public wi-fi in city centres and on public transport

Other measures of interest to business owners:

• To clamp down on "bogus self-employment", shift the burden of proof so that the law assumes a worker is an employee unless the employer can prove otherwise, impose fines on employers not meeting responsibilities, involving trade unions in enforcement, giving a new Ministry of Labour the resources to enforce all workers' rights and banning umbrella firms

• Strengthening trade union rights

• Extend the rights of employees to all workers, including shared parental pay

• Setting up a dedicated commission to modernise the law around employment status

• Guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain and secure reciprocal rights for UK citizens living in EU countries

• Secure continued EU market access allowing British farmers and food producers to continue to sell their products on the Continent

• Ensure there is no drop in EU structural funding as a result of Brexit until the end of the current EU funding round in 2019/20

• Extend the 30 free hours of childcare to all two year-olds, and move towards making some childcare available for one year-olds
  and extending maternity pay to 12 months

Put your questions to candidates and spokespeople from the main political parties at Enterprise Nation's free General Election small business debate in London on 18 May. Book your place here.

Keep up-to-date with the issues that matter in our small business General Election tracker.