How red tape is tying British business in knots

Access to finance for growing companies Last year the Chancellor re-confirmed his long-standing support for the creation of a dedicated British Business Bank. However businesses want reassurance that the Bank will live up to its billing as a major new player in British business growth, and they want a firm timetable in place for the Bank’s creation.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, Martha Lane Fox CBE, founder of lastminute.com and Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s Enterprise Adviser, will be joined on the festival’s main day by some of the country’s leading entrepreneurs and thinkers. Gathering more than 1,000 business leaders in Liverpool, Accelerate 2013 will provide a unique accelerator for growth, motivating high potential businesses to become world-beating organisations that will lead the economic fight-back in Britain.

After rejecting the proposals twice, the House of Lords yesterday voted in favour of plans which will see workers give away employment rights in exchange for receiving shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000 in their company.

Stress had a noticeable impact on businesses in 2012, with decision-makers from British SMEs indicating that the negative effect of stress levels, low morale and staff absence could be set to continue unless the economic environment improves. 29 per cent of SMEs polled state that these issues are having a negative impact on overall business performance. According to a fifth of SMEs surveyed, workforce absence levels have risen over the past two years, with 12 per cent reporting more short-term stress-related absences of less than four weeks in the last year.

What I did witness, however, at Bloomberg’s offices at 8am was an honest assessment of the current state of the EU as being in crisis and its need to change if it is to survive. I, along with some of the country’s leading business people and top political journalists, also saw David Cameron emphatically stating his desire to grab history, and his political career, by the scruff of the neck.

“The only way for the UK economy to grow is to sell more abroad and bring in new cash,” said Chase. “Banks aren’t, and haven’t been, lending to businesses and SME’s in particular. It’s a ‘Catch 22′ situation – the banks won’t lend until the situation improves and the situation will not improve until growing businesses can borrow money at sensible rates,” he said.

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill contains many of the changes prompted by the Government’s Red Tape Challenge, which is now in its final stages and will become law at some point early in 2013 – but no exact date given as yet. But there are some changes we already know about.