Lord Londesborough
Main Page: Lord Londesborough (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Londesborough's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Londesborough
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage entrepreneurs to start up businesses in the United Kingdom.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interests as set out in the register.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, the Government continue to provide support for entrepreneurs, including through start-up loans via the British Business Bank and programmes such as growth hubs across England and the Help to Grow: Management course across the UK. The Government will also publish a small business strategy next year, which will outline our vision for boosting scale-ups and helping all types of small businesses to thrive and grow, empowering entrepreneurs to innovate, export and create jobs across their regions.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
I thank the Minister for his response and I am delighted to see a fellow entrepreneur on the Front Bench—unlike in the other place. Fundraising for start-ups, in the quarter to September, dropped by almost 50% to a six-year low. Both start-ups and scale-ups have been hit by the toxic trio of measures: hikes in capital gains tax, hikes in employers’ national insurance, and hikes in the minimum wage running at three times the rate of inflation. First, on behalf of entrepreneurs, I ask: when will we see meaningful measures to encourage, rather than punish, job creation and risk-taking? Secondly, whatever happened to the Chancellor’s pledge to run
“the most pro-growth Treasury in our country’s history”?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his kind words. We have something in common in that we both founded our respective publishing companies in the 1980s, in the tail-end of the recession and through very challenging economic times. The difference is that he went on to build a huge business empire, compared with mine.
There were definitely fewer funding rounds for start- ups in the last quarter. The age of FOMO—the fear of missing out—on investment, which caused a spike in the last couple of years, has to a certain extent come and gone. However, angel investment, such as EIS with tax rebates of 30% to 50%, remains robust and I am pleased that the Chancellor has now given certainty that this will stay in place until 2035.
The Government’s new modern industrial strategy—