Having articulated a vision for tackling the deficit, the Coalition government must also set out a clear path to economic recovery. This year’s Budget statement is one of the most important in recent years and will be judged on its ability to spell out a strategy for growth backed by practical measures to encourage business investment, job creation and bank lending.
On Thursday 24th March, Edelman in partnership with the Financial Times, brought together an expert panel to debate the Chancellor’s Budget statement and its economic and political ramifications. Robert Phillips, CEO EMEA, chaired the discussion.
The panel included:
Rt Hon Michael Portillo
Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP
John Authers, Global Lex Editor, Financial Times
Watch interviews with the panelists by clicking the right and left arrows below:
Download the analysis produced by Edelman’s Public Affairs team of the Budget 2011.
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| An Edelman Analysis of the Budget 2011 | 440kb |
What I didn’t hear was anything to encourage people to actually start a business, so that they can grow it.
We need more new small businesses and more new entrepreneurs, and they have to be encouraged, given incentives and helped. A lot of depressing stats are bandied around about how few startups survive to their first birthday, so we need to change that. Starting up is the hardest part and even harder if you’re going into a new industry in which you have no experience.
But tiny startups need help. There is plenty of advice and guidance available, but there is no financial help. I’m not saying that everyone with an idea should be given £20k, just that there should be support. Many people thinking of starting up, wonder how they will manage financially before the business takes off, how will they afford all the things that they need for the business. Then they read those depressing stats again, and many imagine that THEY will be in the huge % that fails.
There are plenty of grants for the fashionable industries. The u25s, green co, tech, social enterprise. We even have schemes for school children. Now we have help for companies in Enterprise Zones in disadvantaged areas. But anyone outside these fashionable groups is shown the door.
And yet outside these groups there are still plenty of people who want to start a business. Many are sitting on redundancy money and many years of business experience.
With a list of things to support them, they might be enthused to start:
In the first year only:
Significantly lower personal/corporation tax
No VAT on supplies (for companies not registering for VAT)
Weekly support payments (instead of Job Seekers Allowance) for 3-6 months (depending on business type) whilst business is set up.
Business rate relief for those that can’t operate without premises.
Small loans – again dependent on the business type and business plan. To be paid back when the business is in profit. These could be as little as £2k. That can make a big difference to a start up. They are doing it for hundreds of thousands of students, why not business start ups?