Entrepreneurship and business evidence session
The Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee will begin taking oral evidence on Tuesday 27 October in its new inquiry into Entrepreneurship and business, examining what must change to give people a fair chance to start and build a business.
Meeting details
While business start-up rates in the UK are rising to the highest level in decades, too many would-be entrepreneurs face barriers to raising finance. Crime and rising pressures on high streets make it harder for small businesses to trade and grow.
Recent Committee reports have exposed the difficulties facing small businesses on our high streets and the struggle for even high-potential technology companies to secure growth capital.
The inquiry will examine how these barriers affect entrepreneurs across Britain’s regions and communities, including women, ethnic minority founders and young people without family wealth to draw on.
The inquiry will encompass the full breadth of entrepreneurship: market traders, tradespeople, online sellers and people turning a side hustle into a livelihood, as well as founders building the next generation of British technology companies.
Ahead of the Budget, the opening hearing will bring together experts on entrepreneurship, investors and representatives of high street businesses to examine where support and finance fall short, who is being overlooked and what action is needed.
Rt Hon Liam Byrne, Chair of the Committee, said:
“Your chance to build a business should depend on your ideas and effort, not your postcode or your parents’ bank balance. Today, too many people with both genius and guts can’t get the backing they need, while traders face crime and costs that eat their vital cashflow.
“Entrepreneurship means the market stall and the online shop, the side-hustle and the self-employed tradesperson, as well as the technology start-up. Our inquiry will ask whether people across that whole spectrum have a fair chance to get started and get on.
“Britain is not short of ideas or ambition. And we’re not short of long-term savings looking for ideas to back. So we will explore why finance fails to reach promising businesses, demand answers on the barriers holding founders back and set out what government, lenders and investors must deliver to turn more ambition into jobs and growth.”
Areas of questioning will include:
- How does the UK compare internationally as a place to start and finance a business?
- What prevents entrepreneurs from securing their first investment and the funding they need to grow?
- How do access to finance and business support vary by region, background and personal wealth?
- How much investment reaches small businesses and high street traders?
- How do crime and other pressures affect the ability to start and sustain a business?
- What should the forthcoming Budget deliver for entrepreneurs?
The inquiry is open for written evidence here until Thursday 12 November. Further details and instructions for submitting evidence are also available on the inquiry webpage: Entrepreneurship and business.