APPG for Entrepreneurship Digest: February 2022

Are we doing enough to inspire young people and equip them with the skills to start and grow their own businesses? Many prominent business leaders believe the answer is no. Virgin founder Richard Branson recently told The Times that the education system stamps out creativity and builds in a fear of failure that discourages people from taking risks. One issue is that young people are rarely exposed to entrepreneurs. Multiple polls have found that most young people can’t name an entrepreneurial role model.

Yesterday, we brought together a range of experts and entrepreneurs for an APPG for Entrepreneurship roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education. As is often the case with discussions around education, strong opinions were expressed.

However, there was also widespread agreement particularly on the issue of the wider applicability of entrepreneurial skills. Creativity, teamwork, leadership, and self-motivation are valuable in every line of work. There was recognition as well that entrepreneurship education helped highlight the relevance of more academic knowledge by showing how the learning could be applied in the real world.

The roundtable kicked off a new APPG for Entrepreneurship research project into Entrepreneurship Education. The research, which is kindly supported by financial advisers finnCap, will look at how we can improve the quality of entrepreneurship education in British schools. It will build upon past work from the APPG for Entrepreneurship such as our review of best practice for enterprise education in universities.

We will be putting out a call for evidence shortly, so if you want to contribute to our research into entrepreneurship education then get in touch and we will update you next month.

Calling all Officers
As we plan our AGM, now is the time for MPs and Peers interested in getting more involved in the APPG to get in touch with us to let us know. Drop Katrina Sale an email to express your interest.

Sharing Economy Lords Launch
Following the launch of my Sharing Economy report last year, on 15th March from 3.30pm to 5pm we will be hosting an afternoon tea for Sharing Economy entrepreneurs, MPs and Peers. If that’s you, just let us know if you would like to attend.

From our Advisers
Mike Spicer of Policy Department has published a list of five business trends to watch in 2022. He has also published the first episode of his South Yorkshire PolicyPod featuring Careers and Enterprise Company CEO Oli de Botton and City & Guilds CEO Kirstie Donelly.

In Parliament

The Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, was asked by both Dame Caroline Dineage, the Conservative MP for Gosport, and Simon Bayes, the Conservative MP for Clwyd South, about what steps she was taking to support women in enterprise.

She said “The Government continues to support women in enterprise by implementing the recommendations of the Rose review. Our start-up loans company has advanced more than 35,000 loans to women since 2012, worth nearly £300 million, and that represents 40% of all loans.”

She also congratulated a constituent of Simon Bayes saying “Kerry Mackay is inspirational and I congratulate her and all her colleagues at ScrubbiesUK. She is an exemplar for small businesses, leading the way to help the UK tackle plastic pollution and reach our climate goals. I am glad to hear that she benefited from Government mentoring support, and I will ask the relevant Business Minister to write to my hon. Friend with more details. In the meantime, I hope that people like Kerry Mackay will raise awareness of this opportunity through their own networks, which is often the most effective way to spread the word.”

When Caroline Dineage asked a follow-up question about the impact of COVID-19 on sectors with a higher proportion of female founders in them, the Minister replied “Some of the sectors most impacted by covid, such as the arts and hospitality, include a high proportion of women-led businesses. She will be aware of the targeted measures to help these sectors that were announced just last month by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, including one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises for the hospitality sector and £30 million through the culture recovery fund. That support will help female entrepreneurs to keep trading through the current difficulties and make the most of future opportunities as they look forward to the end of the pandemic.”

Andrew Gwynne, the Labour MP for Denton and Reddish asked “when [will the Commons] have an opportunity to scrutinise the allocation of levelling-up funding? Stockport Council put forward a superb bid for the refurbishment of the Edwardian Reddish baths, fire station and library buildings into a new employment start-up space, learning centre and community hub. It ticked all the boxes: civic pride, employment generation, skills, community. No funding was given.”

The Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, replied that “There is £4.8 billion in the levelling-up fund to help to regenerate town centres and high streets, upgrade local transport and spend money on cultural and heritage assets, and there is £2.4 billion in 101 town deals, investing taxpayers’ money in local economies. It is important to help our towns and cities in restoring local pride across the country. There are always more applications than ability to fund. That is a good thing—a good competitive spirit—and it shows that towns and cities are full of pride for their efforts, successes and histories, but there is not unlimited taxpayer money.”

Following the release of the Levelling Up White Paper, Mary Robinson, Conservative MP for Cheadle, said “I welcome this White Paper and the multi-billion pound investments in brownfield regeneration, connectivity, research and development, and especially the innovation accelerators, which in Cheadle and across Greater Manchester will make a real difference to all those businesses that want the extra help to start up.”

In a debate on Rockets and Satellites, Jerome Mayhew, Conservative MP for Broadland, praised a business called Graitlab in his constituency, saying that “space is no longer just for Governments and multinationals”. He then asked if the government would ensure that our regulation of the sector would encourage start ups.