There was a lot for entrepreneurs to be enthusiastic about in this week’s Queen’s speech. To address the rising cost of living, the Government is focused on growing the economy – so there has been keen interest in decreasing business’ regulatory burden.

We’re particularly happy to see the Procurement Bill, which promises to simplify public sector procurement to make it easier for small businesses to participate. The current process requires too much red tape and gives businesses only a short window to put together applications. We have some ideas about what the Government can do to make this process even easier for everyone, procurers and businesses alike, but I won’t give too much away as this is the subject of our next report.

To spur on the agritech sector, the Government is also putting forward a Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, so hopefully we will see an increase in vertical farming, GMO crops, and maybe even cultured meat.

And there will be changes to our data rules. The Government has been looking for opportunities from Brexit, and reforming the way we treat data could well be one. They will be bringing an end to bothersome cookie notices, for a start, but we’ll hopefully be seeing something more transformative. The Goldacre Review looked into how we might make the most of the goldmine of data that the NHS has, for example. I wrote earlier this week about how it could enable us to create new life-saving therapies and provide better, more personalised, healthcare to NHS patients. Data reform is a key part of getting this right.

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill promises to reform the planning system to give residents more involvement in local development. Regular readers of this newsletter may recognise that as being one of our favourite policies, Street Votes. In our report Strong Foundations, I wrote about how restrictive planning rules have increased the cost of housing, which, in addition to squeezing people’s budgets, also creates a drag on innovation, productivity and entrepreneurship. Among other policy ideas, like Community Land Auctions, I recommended that the Government allow for residents on a street to vote on design codes that could make their streets denser and more beautiful. It is no silver-bullet policy, and it won’t address every aspect of the housing shortage, but it will go a long way to bringing us denser, more beautiful, and more walkable city neighbourhoods.

Since the Queen’s Speech, too, we have seen more policy announcements that we’re excited about. Will Quince, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Education has tweeted today announcing that the Government will be consulting on childcare ratios, investigating whether it is worth moving to the Scottish model, with a ratio of one adult per five two-year olds, rather than one adult for four, as we have in England. This is very encouraging, as the UK has the most expensive childcare in the OECD, and our strict ratios are in large-part to blame.

I don’t want to overstate how good the Queen’s speech was. There were still signs of increasing burdensome regulation. The Online Safety Bill has not been scrapped and, while we think we have done a lot of work to improve the conversation around the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill may have a chilling effect on innovation in the tech space. That remains to be seen.

The APPG
The APPG for entrepreneurship has welcomed two new officers: Labour MP for Sefton Central, Bill Esterson, and Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Jo Gideon.

Both bring a wealth of entrepreneurial experience to the role. Before becoming an MP, Bill Esterson a customer service training company with his wife, and since joining the Commons has served as the Shadow Minister for Small Business. Jo Gideon is an entrepreneur. She started a handmade paper import and wholesale business and she was a leadership mentor for university enterprise centres.

If you want to learn more about our new officers or hear more updates from the APPG, you can sign up to the monthly digest here.