We have been one enterprise tsar short ever since Lord Sugar got
axed from the post as soon as the Coalition came into power. Cue
today's appointment of Lord Young of Graffham, who also happens to
be the prime minister's health and safety advisor. (Lord Young was
previously a trade and industry secretary under Margaret Thatcher,
and recently published a report on health and safety proposing a
decrease in regulation.)
David Cameron has brought in Lord Young to deal specifically
with the red tape burden small businesses face, and to streamline
and simplify the public procurement process for small and
medium-sized firms.
Cameron wrote in a letter to Lord Young: "Government is
institutionally biased against small businesses and enterprise.
Governments have been cavalier in introducing regulations and
requirements, wrongly assuming small business owners can just take
them in their stride, when in fact it can make their lives
impossible. This government must and will be different."
The prime minister has asked the new enterprise tsar to write a
'brutally honest report' on the procurement process. Cameron wrote:
"I am particularly concerned about the shocking way in which small
and medium sized firms are locked out of procurement opportunities
by central and local government, and the rest of the public sector
- for example, the NHS. I would like you to establish, within a
month, an online forum on the No 10 website where small and medium
businesses can tell their public sector procurement horror
stories."
Lord Young will focus his efforts on four key areas: reducing
red tape; improving access to public contracts for small and
medium-sized businesses; improving communication between government
and small and medium-sized firms; and encouraging start-ups by
making careers advice and training more balanced in its approach to
self-employed people, rather than it favouring job seekers, as it
currently does in the government's eyes.
Lord Young said: "I'll be focusing on what barriers government
policy have been put in the way of small business development and
helping to advise on what can be done to make life easier for
businesses to start and grow."
And he's already flexed his influence against another government
advisor, the billionaire retailer Sir Philip Green. Green, a
government business adviser, questioned the need for the
government's target of paying small business suppliers within five
days. Lord Young said scrapping the impressive payment terms would
threaten the livelihood of small firms.
"We are not a business, we are running a country and it is in
the government's interests to see prosperous small businesses,"
Lord Young told Radio 4's Today programme this
morning. "[Small businesses] are 60% of the employment in the
private sector, half the GDP.
"Yes, the government could use its power and could squeeze small
businesses and get some cash in - and we would end up with no
businesses. That's not what government's about."
Hear, hear.