On the Queen’s Speech focus on deregulation, The Entrepreneurs Network’s Research Director, Sam Dumitriu said:
“The only real solution to the cost-of-living crisis is a dynamic, growing economy. It is right then that the Government is pursuing a deregulatory agenda designed to cut the burden on entrepreneurs and allow startups to bring new technologies such as gene-edited food or e-scooters to market.“In recent years, the Conservatives’ pro-enterprise credentials have rightly come under scrutiny. Scrapping badly thought-out plans to restrict the ability of tech entrepreneurs to sell their companies will go some way to restoring their reputation as a party on the side of enterprise. “But, there’s more work to be done. The Online Safety Bill, carried over from the last Parliamentary session, would create massive burdens on innovative digital startups and ultimately entrench the market share of tech giants like Google and Facebook. It should be dropped.”
On Data Reform, The Entrepreneurs Network’s Founder Philip Salter said:
“The UK’s data protection rules are far-from-perfect. Too often, they burden SMEs with excessive costs, hold up research and development, and inconvenience the public with pointless cookie pop-ups. None of which are necessary to protect consumer data from misuse.
“If a new regime can make it easier for biotech startups to use data to develop medicines and allow government departments to better share data so businesses do not need to give the same information twice then it will be a major post-Brexit win.
“The key challenge for the Government is moving to a new system while preserving data adequacy with the EU. The best designed system in the world would be worthless if it meant businesses could not easily transfer data back and forth between the UK and Europe.”
On Procurement, The Entrepreneurs Network’s Senior Researcher, Aria Babu said:
“Small businesses regularly complain about how selling to the government is a time consuming, opaque, and bureaucratic process. As a result, many see selling to the government as not worth their time.
“Despite significant efforts made by successive governments to spend a higher proportion of procurement budgets on small businesses, a steady upwards-tick in red tape and qualification criteria have made it harder for SMEs to bid for public sector contracts.“Moving to a less-bureaucratic, tech-enabled procurement system isn’t just good news for SMEs, it is good news for taxpayers too who will get better value for money. ”