Small firms welcome support in Budget

This week, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced his plans for the UK economy, with a number of policies introduced and a spending review setting out the damage done to public finances by the Coronavirus pandemic. Part of this Autumn Budget was a £150 million fund for regional angel investors as part of the Government’s levelling up agenda and goal “to make the UK the best place in the world to start, grow and invest in a business”.

Other key topics that many small businesses were looking to see addressed, such as business rates reform, saw £7 billion worth of cuts, however new support for businesses was lacking as National Insurance and wages continue to rise and schemes such as furlough come to an end.

The spending announced in the Budget will be welcomed by the small businesses in the regions, but more should be done to support what is a vital section of the economy. I believe that the success of the SMEs of the UK and the economy as a whole are inexorably linked, especially over the next few years. With this in mind, we would have liked to see successful schemes such as the Enterprise Investment Scheme expanded to increase private investment into small, growing firms in the UK.

There is a huge amount of talent and ambition in Britain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and helping them to grow and innovate should be high on the government’s agenda. The past couple of years has been one of the most challenging periods for small businesses but entrepreneurs have been the guiding force to take the UK into the period of recovery and so more needs to be done in terms of resilience planning not only to survive but thrive and grow.

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