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The Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms MP, Minister for Digital Britain, also Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, 31 October 2007
I am delighted to be able to make the tail end of the awards today, and to add my congratulations to those which others have expressed on the achievements of all those being honoured at this event.
Business Start ups are key in underpinning the success of the economy, creating competition and ensuring that the best new ideas are brought into the market to flourish. We have 4½ million businesses in Britain today – more than we have ever had before. Over 1,000 new businesses start each day. One of my priorities is that in Government we should be doing everything we can to help those start up businesses succeed and grow – to go on to become large businesses. So it is very heartening to see the proof in these awards of success on the part of start ups.
It isn’t surprising that an event like this which is committed to celebrating new developments is full of inspiration. Its certainly the case, and I have been impressed by what I have been able to find out about all the nominees. Let me just comment briefly on a few I was particularly impressed with.
I am very pleased a Green Business award has been made, because green business – and so called green collar jobs – are going to be increasingly important to us over the next few years. I applaud the remarkable achievement of Dionne and Simon Rooney of The Local Food Company, running a business whilst also keeping up their existing full time jobs. Their innovation in labelling each product with its food miles may well be very influential in the years ahead.
Innergy LPG was rightly praised by the judges for “fully exploiting the benefits of being small”. Small can still be powerful. I was impressed that they are so confident of the strength of what they offer that they provide on their website links to their competitors, so that customers can make a comparison for themselves.
We need to encourage women entrepreneurs in Britain – I’d like us to have as much female entrepreneurship in the UK as there is in the US – it would mean we had another 700,000 businesses again.
Susie Willis of Plum Baby Ltd is a great example, having spotted a gap in the market, and now providing baby food made from organic “super food” ingredients.
Still on the topic of “super” foods, Fraser Doherty of SuperJam who started at the age of 14 has created a range of sugar free jams made primarily from “super fruits”. One of the very encouraging developments of the last few years has been more and more young people saying they are interested in the idea of starting up a business for themselves, and Fraser is a great example.
Let me also salute the achievements of SportsStars helping in promoting fitness and an active, healthy lifestyle - and tackling obesity - with sport coaching in communities, including in primary schools. This is a young vibrant company who have set down firm foundations for the future, and James Taylor, the founder, is another great role model.
Congratulations to all the winners. I wish you great success with your businesses in the future – success that you can be proud of and enjoy the rewards of, but success that will be great news in reality for the rest of us as well. And thank you for giving me the chance to be here.
