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National Everywoman Conference

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms MP,  Former Minister of State for Competitiveness
Westminster Central Hall, London,  14 November 2007

Thank you for your introduction. I am delighted to be here today, Women’s Enterprise Day in our fourth annual Enterprise Week. In the first Enterprise Week, in 2004, there were 1000 events across the country. In the second year there were 2000 events and the third year there were 3000 – but in this fourth year there are over 5000, so the momentum of support seems to be accelerating. And its going global. Yesterday in London, representatives from almost thirty countries – including the USA, Japan and India – announced that from next year they will be joining us in our idea and creating Global Enterprise Week.

I want to begin by congratulating Maxine and Karen for your entrepreneurial vision in bringing everyone together today. Through your enterprise, you are effectively supporting other women to fulfill their enterprise aspirations. It is true as well that Everywoman is helping us to understand better the barriers that hold women back from growing their businesses successfully – and also helping us identify solutions.

And this is important. Women make up 46% of the labour market, but a far smaller proportion of Britain’s entrepreneurs. We think that represents a loss to the economy – a wealth of talent and economic opportunity which we need to tap into. If women in Britain matched US levels of female entrepreneurship there would be 700,000 more businesses in the UK on top of the 4½ million we have at the moment – which incidentally is more than we have ever had before – so it’s a big prize that we want to realise. In fact, the overall lower rate of entrepreneurship in the UK compared with the US is almost entirely accounted for by the lower rate of women’s entrepreneurship in the UK.

There are encouraging signs. The number of self-employed women has increased by 10% over the last four years. And a much larger proportion of new entrepreneurs are women – 36% of the newly self-employed, compared to just 27% of those currently self-employed.

To accelerate the UK further towards US levels of female entrepreneurship, we have established the Women’s Enterprise Task Force jointly chaired by Pam Alexander and Glenda Stone. It is looking for solutions to the barriers, raising the profile of female entrepreneurship, and will act as a source of advice and expertise.

Amongst other issues, the Task Force is looking at improving access to finance for women, including measures to improve investment readiness of women owned businesses. It is also looking at encouraging larger companies to include more women owned businesses in their supplier base, possibly through accreditation by a third party.

Allied to the Task Force, a Women’s Enterprise Ambassadors network has been established. In a very short time following announcement of this initiative by my predecessor Margaret Hodge, over 1,000 female entrepreneurs have been recruited to inspire other women to set up in business.

And the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship has established a “Flying Start” programme to help women graduates planning to set up a business, or having just started one.

But we know we need to do more. We are renewing our enterprise strategy to deliver the conditions for business success and further reduce barriers to creation and growth of businesses across all regions. We aim to publish a new strategy in the Spring, to draw out individuals’ creative capacity, generate fresh ideas and encourage their development and capitalisation. There will be a new focus in the strategy on helping existing businesses grow, and women’s enterprise will be a thread which will run through it all.

And that is why I’m so pleased to be able to give my backing to the Everywoman Conference 2007, with its focus on maximising business growth for women. As a showcase for what women have achieved, by giving access to role models and creating opportunities for women to develop their skills and to network, Everywoman is making a big contribution to building the conditions for successful female enterprise.

I wish you all great success in the future with your enterprises. And thank you for giving me the chance to say a few words to you.

Thank you.