Section Menu

Speech to Everywoman Conference 2008

Baroness Shriti Vadera,  Minister for Economic Competitiveness, Small Business and Enterprise (jointly with Cabinet Office)
Westminster Central Hall, London,  19 November 2008

I’m delighted to join you on Women’s Enterprise Day, in Global Entrepreneurship Week. Every one of you here for me is a role model. And not just a role model for women, and for gender equality. But for Britain’s economic competitiveness, and Britain’s prosperity.

If women started businesses at the same rate as men, we would have an extra 150,000 start-ups every year. If as many British women started a business as American women we would have an extra 900,000 businesses. Just think of what that would do for jobs and for wealth creation, particularly at a time like this.

As the Everywoman survey shows, it’s not as if we don’t have the talent and drive to be successful in business. We actually do better, and usually we have a better skill set. But what’s interesting is that we don’t always believe we have the skills, in the same way men do.

We fear failure more than men. And we are less likely to believe we are able to start a business – 40% of women think they have the skills to do it, but that compares with 57% of men. So there is a confidence gap, and it’s one we have to close.

As a woman politician once said: “whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this isn’t difficult.”

In these very competitive and difficult times, no country is going to succeed if it ignores anyone’s talent. Least of all if it ignores the talent of women.

There are nearly one million more small businesses in Britain today than there were ten years ago. They survive longer, they are more productive, they are more innovative, they aspire to grow more, and they employ more people than they did ten years ago. And there are more women entrepreneurs.

But they are still very significantly under-represented among entrepreneurs. Only 16% of our 4.7 million small businesses are run by women. We as a government are acutely aware of that, because we know the enterprise gap we are trying to fill is largely a women’s enterprise gap.

So we have launched the women’s national policy centre, the first in Europe and based on a US model, to develop expertise and raise awareness of women’s enterprise.

We have also established women’s business centres, starting in three regions and working with the regional development agencies, to give women entrepreneurs a bespoke business support service. We have also set up the Women’s Enterprise Task Force, chaired by Pam Alexander and Glenda Stone, to help us identify some of the barriers we need to dismantle.

We are making progress, and we are seeing the number of women’s businesses grow. But one of the biggest barriers is around women’s attitudes towards finance. Women are less likely to seek external finance to grow their business, because they believe they are less likely to be successful in raising it. And they ask for less finance, particularly equity finance.

This issue was raised with me when I first became Minister for Small Business in January.

And I’m now very pleased I’m here today to launch the women’s investment fund. It’s called the Aspire Fund and it’s a £25m fund, which combines government and private sector money. It’s designed for businesses with high-growth potential seeking equity investment. It offers investment of between £100,000 and £2m, and it is open to all businesses led by women.

We are launching this fund today because you told us you wanted something that would act as a beacon for women’s access to finance. You identified the gap, and that is what we are aiming to fill.

It provides specialist advice on how to pitch for new funding, particularly if you’re not sure where to go. It will also help build confidence and skills in getting yourselves ready for investment.

I really do want this fund to be a beacon. It can be, I think, with your support: encouraging women entrepreneurs to seek equity finance, and demonstrating that companies run by women are more attractive investment opportunities, in some cases, than those run by men.

All of you here today are the proof that women can be innovators, we can be wealth creators, and we can be role models.

I know this is a very difficult time in the global economy. It’s quite unprecedented. But we as a government will do everything we can to help.

My particular focus is to help small businesses with cashflow problems. We have instituted a system for government contracts where we will pay as soon as we can, within ten days, to assist small businesses with their cashflow.

I’m also very focused on ensuring the banks lend to small businesses at reasonable rates. We have set up the small business finance forum, which brings together the banks’ heads of small business lending, with representatives of small businesses. Pam Alexander is representing the Women’s Task Force. The first meeting led to a real discussion between businesses and the heads of business banking, helping them understand each other’s problems.

So we will do absolutely everything we can to support you. But, like Karen and Maxine, I would like you to leave here today feeling inspired about what you can achieve. Because it’s very important for us, and for the economy, that every single one of you fulfils your talent.

Winston Churchill said: “some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is – the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.”

That’s what it is, and we want to help you succeed through this very difficult time. So if you have any ideas, at any point, that you would like to feed back to us, we would be delighted to hear them. Have a good conference.