While perhaps we should forgive US journalists for their lack of understanding of the intricacies of how the Crown and Parliament work, it’s nevertheless amusing that many thought that on Tuesday the Queen stood up in Parliament and literally dictated to Boris what he now needs to do. If the Crown had really wrest power from Parliament, I suspect there wouldn’t be much room in her speech for ending the practice of ground rents for new leasehold properties.

Not that the speech was uneventful: there were relevant policy announcements for entrepreneurs. In our response, we think there are some positive moves, but it could, and should, have gone further.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill, for example, will help meet the UK’s 2.4% of GDP commitment, but we need to incentivise the private sector too. That’s why we called on the Government to get on top of the long-overdue expansion of the scope of R&D Tax Credits – which the Government is consulting on – as soon as possible.

We also welcomed changes to make procurement more accessible for SMEs, but as we will discuss in a forthcoming paper: “Too often, large companies with dedicated public sector teams win out because they are better able to navigate the labyrinthine bidding rules. But complexity isn’t the only issue. For small businesses, every activity has a major opportunity cost. Most SMEs cannot devote dedicated resources to scouring multiple outlets in search of public procurement opportunities, so it’s vital that bids are advertised in a timely manner on a single platform.”

One of the most under-investigated areas of entrepreneurship policy is the impact of planning policy on businesses (something we’re planning to correct). Again, we were cautiously optimistic about the potential of the new Planning Bill to build more homes where people want to live and work. As was Policy Exchange’s Ben Southwood, although our Adviser Sam Bowman is a lot less sanguine.

Our response expresses concern about the unintended consequences of the online harms announcements, and while it didn’t feature in our immediate response, the total ban on online advertising for products high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) by the end of 2022 may also be too blunt a policy tool to deal with a complex issue.

For context, on Thursday I gave out an award to the founder of Ma Baker, a micro bakery, for winning the Heart of Gold category in the Small Awards. However, businesses like this could be severely damaged, as No10 is unsure whether bakeries will be allowed an Instagram account. The Government’s own evidence shows that an online ad ban will cut children’s calorie intake by just 2.84 calories per child, per day. I’m sure this will be raised by some entrepreneurs on our upcoming virtual drinks event with Selaine Saxby MP, Vice Chair of the Hospitality and Tourism APPG.

Clearly promoting innovation is now high up the Government’s agenda – the challenge will be to do so without killing it with a thousand new regulations.

Spin country
This week I learned about Spinout.fyi via Nicolas Colin – a noble effort to crowdsource and openly publish spinout deal terms across every university. It’s like Glassdoor and Levels.fyi, aiming to shed light on deal terms to catalyse a rewrite of the spinout playbook in favour of future founders. They have a short survey for anyone with experience in spinning out companies. Along these lines, we will release a report on policies to support spinouts later in the year, so please get in touch with Sam Dumitriu if you want to share your ideas with him.

It's easy being
Building on the success of our Green Entrepreneurship report, we’re in the process of planning a Green Entrepreneurship Forum (a little like our Female Founders Forum). I’ll share more details in due course, but we are currently on the hunt for planet-saving entrepreneurs to contribute to the project. If that’s you or someone you know – get in touch with Katrina Sale.

On the Green Entrepreneurship front, the UK Government and PUBLIC have launched Tech For Our Planet this week. They are inviting innovators to pilot and showcase digital solutions to some of the most pressing climate issues, so check them out.