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Baroness Shriti Vadera, Minister for Economic Competitiveness, Small Business and Enterprise (jointly with Cabinet Office)
London, 15 May 2008
I am delighted to be here today and congratulate the Prince’s Trust on the 25th Anniversary of its pioneering business programme which attracts attention from all over the world.
And I would like to congratulate all of the business supported here today, many of whom have been with the business programme from its birth.
My job is to encourage people, as far as any government can, to start and grow a business. That does not mean a small or privileged part of the population but people from every strata of society and every region in Britain. Not just because it is the right and equitable thing to do, but because it is an economic imperative. No country can succeed in an intensively competitive global economy with unlocking all the talents of all of their people.
In particular we cannot prosper unless we encourage all young people with ideas, drive and potential to consider a business career.
So I’m always delighted when I get the chance to celebrate success in this area.
The Prince’s Trust has an enviable record of achievement. You have had a major impact on the lives of young people across the UK.
In 25 years of the business programme, your cutting edge work has helped more than 70,000 young people set up a business. That is tremendous for the economy and inspiring for me.
What is more encouraging is that almost 6 out of every 10 people you have supported are still in business trading into their third year.
We know that there is now huge interest from young people looking to start up their own business. Indeed Enterprise Week attracted over half a million participants last November.
The challenge is converting that interest into reality by helping them to start up their own business. This is particularly true for young people in deprived areas.
Despite increasing numbers of our young people staying on in school, the challenge is to reach out to the one in ten 16-18 year olds not in education, employment or even training.
If the highest rates of business activity in the UK were matched in deprived areas, there would be about an extra 300,000 businesses in the UK.
Earlier this year during the budget, we published our new enterprise strategy.
It sets out our ambitions to be the best place in the world to start and grow a business and puts forward specific measures to deal with some of the barriers that business told us about.
We identified five broad priority areas for some government interventions – knowledge and skills, access to finance, the regulatory framework, improving our ability to innovate, and the one I would like to focus on briefly here today, the need to create a culture of enterprise.
A culture that encourages people to have the aspiration, confidence and belief to turn their ideas into reality, and not be constrained by a fear of failure.
Organisations like the Prince’s Trust are crucial to helping us deliver this.
So I’m please to announce today that we’ll provide £1 million to the Prince’s Trust to spread the enterprise message amongst our most disadvantaged young people.
The Prince’s Trust have agreed that they will use these funds:
We’re also supporting PRIME – The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise.
Over 50s have skills, experience and judgement, and are having a major impact on our economy. They account for two in every five self-employed people in the UK but only one in every five newly self employed people so we need to ensure we continue to tap into the potential of this group.
I want to emphasise the new Enterprise Strategy is certainly not the final word, but the next steps in our agenda which we will drive forward over the next few years.
Our ambition is to make the UK the most enterprising country in the world. If we are to achieve this, we must work in partnership with dedicated, creative and effective organisations like the Prince’s Trust to unlock the vast potential that exists in this country to the benefit of us all.
