View from Westminster
Gareth Thomas Minister for Services, Small Business and Exports
Family businesses are the backbone of our economy and our communities. Built over generations, and run with the next generation in mind, the 5 million family businesses in the UK are the bedrock upon which the Government aspires to kick-start economic growth. Planning for the long-term, investing into local communities with purpose, and determined to create a more prosperous and sustainable future – the approach of family businesses closely mirrors the Government’s own commitment to building a modern economy, fit for the future. That’s why, as a government, we are committed to hardwiring your voice into everything we do. For too long, family businesses – many of whom are small businesses – have been held back by all-too- familiar challenges: raising funding from start-up to scale-up, dealing with anti-social behaviour on the high street, overcoming trade barriers, spending time complying with new regulation, and more. Your voice on these issues is being heard, loud and clear, as we develop our Small Business Strategy. This is a strategy developed in partnership with business, and we are pleased to have worked closely with Family Business UK and many of its members in bringing the best ideas together to ensure action is as effective as possible for all SMEs. Through the strategy, due to be published later this
year, we will give businesses like yours the tools, resources and backing you need to grow and thrive. Aligning this with the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and our Trade Strategy will further ensure family businesses can tap into real growth opportunities. But we also know that businesses value swift, concrete action and, throughout this first year in government, we have taken important and immediate steps to help family businesses. We are breaking down barriers to finance. In the Budget, more than £1 billion was announced for the British Business Bank over the next two years, with more funding for start-up loans and a growth guarantee scheme. All squarely aimed at helping entrepreneurs to take ideas from design to development. And our recent call for evidence, which focused on the critical importance of small business access to finance, has given businesses the chance to tell us exactly what would make the greatest difference to you. To revitalise our high streets, we are tackling anti-social behaviour and retail crime head on through the Crime and Policing Bill, introducing a new standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker. We are working with the banking industry to roll out banking hubs and empowering communities to make the most of vacant properties through high street rental auctions. There are meaningful steps to breathe new life into high streets that we have already delivered. But we want to go further. On trade, we know it is businesses who export that grow the quickest – up to twice the rate of those who don’t. We are making sure there’s the best practical support in place to enable you to access exciting markets around the world, whether your family business is one of our smallest start-ups, an SME or one of the UK’s biggest firms. From
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