ITV News Business Club: What would get us on the road to recovery?

Laura Kuenssberg

Former Business Editor

ITV News Business Editor Laura Kuenssberg with Clippy McKenna Credit: ITV News

This Thursday we'll find out if the country has officially emerged from recession or not.

The number crunchers expect the economy will be shown to have grown between July and September, perhaps by 0.6 percent. But few experts believe the numbers will show the economy bouncing back convincingly.

Slashed forecasts for growth for the rest of the year are measly, and while last week's jobs numbers were healthier than expected, we are a long way from a persuasive recovery.

So while politicians scratch their heads over the elusive hunt for growth, ahead of Thursday's statistics we've asked three members of the ITV News Business Club for tangible ideas they believe would make a difference to their industries and would help us escape the shadow of recession.

Tonight we hear from Clippy McKenna. Just a couple of years ago she was making jam in her kitchen at home. Now her products are sold in several supermarkets and she is working on exporting to China. Except she has come up against one big obstacle, her progress has been held back by a dispute that is almost beyond parody.

Ms McKenna has spent the last fifteen months in fervent discussions with EU officials, UK officials, trading standards bodies and even government lawyers over whether she is actually allowed to call her jam, jam.

Her "jam" has less sugar than the normal type you find of the supermarket shelf but in her words that "fell foul of a ridiculous jam rule."

She believes her story is a symbol of a culture where small business has to "squirrel around ... filling in all kinds of forms". She told me she has "government officials nickety picketing over everything I do ... Red tape does harm a small business, instead of doing what you're good at, you're often stuck behind the scenes filling out bits of paper".

The government is consulting on the sugar content of jams, (I'm not making this up, Ms McKenna says there were no less than five government officials at her last meeting), but while ministers say they are acting to get rid of regulation, she believes small businesses like her own need government to act much faster; "People get frightened by a red tape scenario, and we're in it .. A lot of small businesses get scared by going up to a bureaucrat, going up against a civil servant".

If rules and regulations, she believes were to be relaxed, and fast, she believes, "Oh god, it would make a massive, massive difference".