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Nigel Griffiths MPNFEA Conference |
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It's a great pleasure to be here at Scarman House in Warwick University this morning and to meet people whose job it is to help small businesses to start-up, grow and to thrive! This is an exciting time of change and opportunity. I echo what David Irwin has already said: the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies is at the forefront of these developments. Government can help create the right economic conditions, but it's your role to help small firms to thrive and prosper. NFEA plays a key role in encouraging many more to start-up in business. This is vital to the economic prosperity of our nation. The challenge for the future is to ensure that we pull out all the stops to maintain the enormous dynamism and success which goes with being the world's 4th largest economy, while having only the world's 20th biggest population. Small businesses play a vital role in our economy. I don't have to tell you the economic importance of small businesses. Our 3.7 million SMEs employ 12 million people and have an annual turnover of one trillion pounds Let no-one say we lack a spirit of enterpreneurship. Since 1997 there have been 1.3 million start-ups, and the survival rate of new businesses is the strongest it has been for a decade. As Minister for Small Business, I have four goals:
Our SBS is playing a leading role. Since it was established just over a year ago, SBS has had a number of notable achievements:
No wonder I told David Irwin the first time I met him that I didn't want to launch a single new initiative for a year! With one exception: As you know today we are implementing one of the main recommendations of the 'Opportunity for All' White Paper - the SBS Business Incubation Fund will be open from Monday. I want to ensure that the businesses we have been encouraging to start, are given the chance to survive and grow. And early stage help for businesses in incubators makes for sustained success. We're putting £75 million into the new Fund for precisely this purpose, adding to the Innovative Clusters helping incubators in clusters for start-ups in high-growth high-tech sectors. For internet start-ups, we've created the Internet Incubator Fund. And the new SBS Fund will take forward our aim of 'Enterprise for All' helping to ensure that incubation is widely accessible to all start-ups. Review of Business Support One thing is clear, to meet the productivity challenge, the UK needs to improve its record of both business creation and growth. Gordon Brown and Patricia Hewitt have committed the SBS to bring together these different activities in support of business start-ups. Let's be frank - we have too many inconsistent and overlapping schemes. This isn't good value for money, and it's confusing for business. I believe we need a more coherent and rational approach and I'm asking all of you for your input. Local Enterprise Agency (LEA) representatives have already made a very useful contribution during the event held at Barnsdale Lodge in Rutland on 13 September, and we will continue to seek the input of LEAs. My prediction is that these reviews will lead to even more emphasis on small firms and much higher expectations of what the SBS can do to help them I believe it's vital that we secure more partnership working between Enterprise Agencies, Young Enterprise, Business Dynamics and the key business organisations working together on a regional level to deliver a more coherent approach to promoting entrepreneurship. There are around 50,000 small businesses started each year by people over the age of 50. and 50,000 young people under 25 set up businesses each year. But this government is committed to encouraging even more women to start their own businesses. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2000 Report, the UK scores well in relation to other European countries in terms of the proportion of women in business, but poorly in comparison with the United States Most new firms are started by men aged between 25 and 44 - they are twice as entrepreneurially active as women. The Future for Small Business In the industrial economy of the 20th century, large corporations drove economic progress. The "nation of shopkeepers" were, of course, small business operators. This spirit of British entrepreneurship has not changed, and in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, the drivers of change will be small businesses. Sir David Wright told me that twenty, and even ten years ago, when he was spearheading the effort to get Japanese firms to build plants in Britain, an announcement that a plant creating 1,000 jobs was a good result. Now, an inward investment creating 200 jobs is great news. But for me, jobs are not the be-all and end-all. We need to nurture and encourage enterprises that create products and services that can stand the test of time, and of fierce competition. Government support for support's sake, or solely to save un-viable jobs will not take us forward and would threaten to drag us down. In March this year the DTI published a "Foresight" report called Financing the Enterprise Society. It predicts that over the next ten years, small businesses - not large ones - will be the main drivers of economic growth, product innovation and job creation in our country. I believe we have an ideal opportunity to discuss these issues because it's right that those of us involved in small business support consider the impact that changing financial systems and regulation could have on SMEs. By working together, I believe that we can begin to shape that future. Conclusion So in conclusion, we've come a long way since taking office. The landscape has totally changed - the SBS is the first organisation in the UK dedicated to looking after the interests of SMEs. SBS is now a key driver in tackling red tape. In December 1998, there was no notion that SMEs would be able to deal direct with Government. Now, we have in place a new national Gateway to support SMEs from the centre. We have generated a wealth of new ideas and measures for small firms. Doing all we can to achieve a flexible and customised approach. But key thing is that all these initiatives and measures have a single common aim: creating a more entrepreneurial and competitive Britain. Finally - I should like to wish you all success with your annual conference, and look forward to an even more dynamic role for Enterprise Agencies in the new arrangements: your remit is firmly focused toward start-up businesses. So it is you who will help in encouraging and developing the new enterprises that will thrive in the new millennium. Thank you. |
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Other speeches by Nigel Griffiths MP
(the following are available from the archive) |
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