UK Government lacks an entrepreneurial spirit and know-how

I can’t help but feel that the UK Chancellor, and the rest of the UK Government, have missed a huge trick in the recent Covid mini-budget this week. For example, there is nothing in there that even begins to mention the encouragement of enterprise, entrepreneurship, start-ups or innovation and this shocks me. 

This seemingly endless supply of money that the UK have will run out at some point, and I can’t help but feel that paying companies to hire people seems incredibly counterintuitive. People don’t hire because of subsidies, they hire them because they need them for further growth and success. I wonder if anyone in the UK government actually understands how business works.

What’s the point in hiring someone if you’re still struggling under the strain of Covid-19? Once the subsidy finishes, what do we do – fire these people again because we can’t actually afford them?

Instead, the UK Government needs to be subsidising growth and success in other areas such an innovation and technology, which will ultimately create thousands of new jobs in this new world, which are more stable and secure. 

There are nine million people on furlough at present in the UK, who potentially don’t have jobs to go back to, but instead of giving them skills and tools to be self-sufficient and start up something of their own, the UK Government are handing them a temporary solution, which may dissolve as quickly as it was created. And ironically, the scheme for 16 – 24s, the 'Kickstarter', is far from what a kickstarter is in the start-up world. It’s not helping new businesses and innovators receive funding for their ideas as the original startup named Kickstarter does, it’s just handing people a temporary job on a broken plate.

It was pointed out to me recently that the average successful Kickstarter platform campaign raised ￡19,000. This could mean the government's ￡3B investment in temporary jobs, could fund 158,000+ new companies all with the long term ability to hire people in the new business world we find ourselves in today. It would also give British people the chance to work for themselves, become self sufficient and perhaps even export brand Britain around the world!

Working for yourself is the answer for many people. You cannot wait for a job anymore, you can create one for yourself.

The government has missed this opportunity in this budget and should encourage people to start a business and gave them toolboxes and training to begin an entrepreneurial path, that would, especially in the long-term, create so many more jobs without the huge economic collateral we are ultimately going to face.

Now is the time to not give people fish to eat for a week, but to give them a fishing rod so they can eat for a lifetime.

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About Simon Squibb:

Simon is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, mentor and podcast host based in London.

He has started 17 businesses, invested in 66 startups and has mentored hundreds of founders. Having sold his award-winning insight-driven branding and digital agency, Fluid, to PwC, in 2016 Simon now focuses on inspiring, motivating and guiding the next generation of entrepreneurs. Simon’s podcast can be found via www.goodluckpod.com

Connect to Simon via www.simonsquibb.com + www.youtube.com/simonsquibb