This week our friends at Form Ventures released Fix The Regulators, a policy report which delivers exactly what its title suggests. As it argues: “Creaking regulatory capacity is constraining economic and startup growth, slowing innovation in the sectors that matter most to people’s lives, and becoming a rate limiter on UK startup and tech progress.”
It comes – as nearly every report from now until the election will – with a manifesto. (Guilty: We are planning something along these lines for our 10-year anniversary). I’ll focus on the first of its four manifesto points today: that the UK should set an ambition to have the fastest regulatory approval timelines in the world.
To achieve this, the report recommends introducing a ‘pay for speed’ option and expanding international recognition procedures. A ‘pay for speed’ option would ensure a quick decision with guaranteed fee refunds for the failure of the regulator to meet the deadline. This makes complete sense. We already have fees for speed in other parts of government such as the immigration system, whereby individuals and companies that require a prompt decision can get priority service. After all, it’s not just the uncertainty of the outcome of regulatory approval that deters entrepreneurs and spooks investors, it's the uncertainty around the time the whole process will take. Time, as they say, is money.
The report also calls for the expansion of international recognition procedures, whereby novel and frontier technologies that have already been internationally authorised in other trusted jurisdictions (such as the US, Europe, and Singapore) would be automatically – or at least more quickly – authorised here. Again, this is something we and other countries and trading blocks already do, for example in pharma. The key thing is that we need to do it with novel technologies too – such as Singapore’s approach to cell-cultivated foods and South Korea’s small nuclear reactors – where other country’s regulators are already ahead of the curve.
I recommend reading the report in full (it's exactly the right length).
Labour of Love
When you ask, we deliver. This week we hosted an event on the question I probably get asked the most by entrepreneurs and those supporting them: “What would a Labour Government mean for entrepreneurs?”
We brought together a stellar team of insiders, includingTom Adeyoola who co-wrote Labour’s Start-Up, Scale-Up report; Rajesh Agrawal, Former Deputy Mayor of London for Business and Labour candidate for Leicester East; Lulu Freemont, Secretary of Labour Digital and a Director at Milltown Partners; techUK’s Neil Ross (one of the brains behind UK Labour's tech policy); and some final words from Seema Malhotra MP, Shadow Minister for Skills and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship.
We already knew that most entrepreneurs are more optimistic – or at least less pessimistic – about a Labour victory than the other options. Our Risk Readiness Report with Mishcon de Reya was the first to ask founders what they thought. When it comes to trusting political parties in understanding what their businesses need to succeed: +17% for the Labour Party, +5% for Liberal Democrats, +2% for the Conservative Party and the Green Party, and -3% for the SNP.
As Derin Kocer writes on the event: “Political turmoil dominated the past decade, whether it’s the shock of Brexit or the fact that Britain changed as many Prime Ministers as Italy. Adeyoola described the upcoming election as 'an opportunity to redefine Britain for the rest of the world.'
“The UK’s strengths must play a central role in this: we are attracting the best and the brightest to build here; we lead Europe in science and technology; and British universities are world-beating. Britain is one of the few places in the world where inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs can act in harmony to build the future.”
Lest we be accused of political bias, I should add that this week we also took a group of 20 fantastic entrepreneurs into No10 to discuss the issues they faced when growing their businesses, and hosted an Entrepreneurs’ Dinner at Arbuthnot Latham with Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake.
The Magic Number
Next month will be our 10-year anniversary. Patrons, Advisers and Supporters can RSVP here to an afternoon tea reception in the House of Lords, which is being kindly supported by our first and longest-term corporate partner: Octopus Group. I’ll be able to share more details closer to the date, but if you would like to help us in the next 10 years, join us today. You’ll be in very good company.
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