1. Within three months of being elected as MP, I will call for a summit of all businesses in Ealing Southall to come together to bring forward ideas to lift the local economy. It could be about promoting the area as place to do business, or shaping government policy to allow businesses to thrive through better infrastructure or an end to high taxes. I think for long time local businesses have felt voiceless, and I want to provide that voice, and to ensure the message gets through to those in power.

2. The immediate result of a Conservative victory at the election will be that Labour’s planned national insurance rise will be stopped dead in its tracks. I think stopping this tax on jobs will be enormously helpful in Southall, Hanwell and Ealing as many businesses have had to think very carefully as to whether they can go on employing the people they do. The recovery will be very precarious and I strongly believe that hitting employers just when they might be looking forward to growth and taking on more people is the wrong thing to do. The other thing I am looking forward to seeing with a Conservative Government is automatic business rate relief for small businesses. By getting rid of some of the bureaucracy that surrounds rate relief we can ensure all small businesses benefit from the relief they are entitled to and then save some of the jobs that small business employs.

3. As a councillor I have done much to push for new business. Hanwell and Southall look so much better than they did four years ago as we have sorted out street cleaning. In Southall we have many more streets that are cleaned daily and the wheelie bins have helped deal with the rat problem. All this goes to make the are a more attractive place to come and do business. Our Town Centre Regeneration programme, again which is designed to bring people in to the area to shop and do business, has seen £2 million invested in Southall Town Centre and £1M for Hanwell. And I have taken steps to improve parking in Southall – with the introduction of dual use car parking in Southall Broadway – as well as plans to find a car park site.

4. I will press for economic growth in the area by taking the concerns of business seriously and lobbying all I can to bring growth and jobs into the area. Successive Labour MPs have ignored Southall business, believing that they could safely be ignored as they do not vote. But businesses employ people and we need to encourage opportunities for our residents to be employed locally. I want to see a prosperous Ealing Southall where people want to come set up business to take advantage of our unique cultural mix and good transport links. The prosperity to Ealing Southall will not and can not be achieved in isolation. Therefore , I will liaise other MPs of the region , irrespective of their political affiliation to formulate region based policies.

1. West Ealing, Hanwell and Southall town centres are all in desperate need of regeneration and I will use my position to influence Ealing Council to increase its regeneration budget for these areas which are often neglected. For example, in the 2009-2010 financial year, Ealing Council spent £1million in Hanwell, £1.7million in West Ealing and £2million in Southall but spent over £5million on Greenford alone so Lib Dems want to see fairness in the way that regeneration money is allocated across the borough. Secondly, it is important that the Government after May sets the right conditions for economic recovery and if I am elected as part of a Liberal Democrat Government, we will begin our term of office with a one-year economic stimulus and job creation package of £3.1 billion which will be used to create 100,000 jobs nationally with the aim of cutting carbon emissions at the same time. Some of this money would be spent locally and create local jobs promoting energy efficiency, replacing boilers, insulating public buildings and bringing empty homes back into use. Thirdly, we need to build on Ealing Council's Shop Local scheme and I will work with local traders groups such as Hanwell Association of Traders to encourage residents to shop locally and new shops to join these schemes. For example, in Hanwell Corner Carpets is cheaper than Carpetright so it doesn't just benefit their local town centre but it also makes economic sense for people to shop locally. By working together the shops will also have much more economic power to advertise and promote the area. Finally, I also think we need to make sure that when new shops are built that they have access to high speed broadband so they are better able to take advantage of the power of the internet in marketing their goods and services.

2. In addition to the steps outlined in response to question 1, Lib Dems also support the establishment of Local Enterprise Funds and Regional Stock Exchanges. Local Enterprise Funds will help local investors put money into growing businesses in their own part of the country and support the development of new products from research to production. Regional Stock Exchanges will be a route for businesses to access equity without the heavy regulatory requirements of a City of London listing.

3. My father is a businessman and in the past has ran a chain of pharmacies, shops, warehouses and restaurants so I have spent much of my early life working in the family business. I currently work for Xerox in an Operations role in their Developing Markets Organisation head office where my job involves supporting the Xerox businesses in areas like Russia, India and Africa. Finally, I have always tried to lead by example and shop locally wherever possible and in my role as Chair of the Hanwell Steering Group, I worked with the previous Labour administration on Ealing Council in identifying shops for shop front improvement in the Hanwell area, which included a new front door and window for the local Post Office and various shops in Hanwell town centre.

4. While the vast majority of my time will be spent dealing with casework and the concerns of residents, I will commit to dedicate a great deal of my time in my first term in parliament towards regenerating our town centres which have been sadly ignored for many years by councils more concerned with planning new housing than economic development.