Emma Jones CBE is the founder and chief executive of small business network and business support provider Enterprise Nation. 

She calls on the Chancellor to support Britain’s entrepreneurs and small businesses by introducing more support on technology and bringing in Export Tax Credits.

It’s the Autumn statement next week, and while it’s ‘not the Budget’, it’s going to be a key moment for the Chancellor to set out the economic policy that’s going to take us into an election year.

It’s a flashpoint that needs to combine pragmatic fiscal flair with a feel-good factor.

And while the statement is clearly not all about business, the UK’s entrepreneurs and six million small businesses will be looking for at least a signal that the government has got their back.

It’s also Global Entrepreneurship Week – a chance to celebrate our nation’s self starters and all the risks they take in pursuit of business.

A lot has happened since the last statement, Insolvency Service data released in October 2023 showed companies going under hit the highest levels since the financial crash of 2009.

A significant 6,342 companies were registered as insolvent in the three months to the end of June, 10 per cent more compared to the same quarter in 2022.

What is abundantly clear is that the UK’s small businesses need support now to develop the skills required not just to survive but thrive.

I firmly believe that access to support as early as possible in a business owner’s journey is vital and that it can literally save companies from going under. 

With economists warning of a persistent deficit pushing into the next decade, we need to be more ambitious for our economy.

Small businesses need support to develop the skills required not just to survive but thrive 

To do that we need a healthy pipeline of innovative businesses to support future economic growth, increase innovation and add diversity to the UK’s business community.

We need to be ready to support founders to develop the skills and to connect them with experienced business advisers and mentors who can guide based on their own life lessons and journey.

I wrote to the Chancellor outlining how we think the right conditions to build an ‘enterprise nation’ could be achieved. 

We are willing to play our part in providing a platform that connects businesses to a full range of support that we deem to be an essential component in achieving sustainable business – and therefore wider economic – growth.

One of the key planks of our recommendations was to urgently incentivise and increase tech adoption to boost productivity, competitiveness and resilience to future shocks.

While the Government’s Help to Grow: Digital programme was closed earlier this year, the problem it was trying to tackle has not gone away.

According to the World Economic Forum, the UK ranks 31st in the world for tech and ICT adoption.

My company Enterprise Nation recently launched Tech Hub, a major new national initiative designed to scale tech adoption and boost digital investment and skills amongst the UK’s small business community – and in part designed to replace Help to Grow: Digital as a private sector-led response.

It’s a step in the right direction towards the boost we need to see in the economy, but we need it to be universally embraced to remove the barriers to tech adoption that currently exist – such as confusion about where to go for advice.

The Chancellor should incentivise exporting 

The other key thing the Chancellor could do is to trial an Export Tax Credit or Export Vouchers to incentivise exporting among SMEs.

Our own research found that if UK exports had rebounded as strongly as Germany’s following the pandemic, we would be exporting $111billion (£89.22billion) more than is currently the case.

An Export Tax Credit or Voucher would allow businesses to claim a credit on any money it spends in pursuit of exporting activities.

Exactly how the Export Tax Credit should work would need to be consulted on, but modelling it on Research and Development Tax Credits would be a sensible place to start. Businesses are already familiar with how this works, and it has proven a successful intervention to date.

An alternative form of support could be to trial Export Vouchers, to subsidise the costs of firms that are looking to export for the first time. Voucher-style schemes are a common intervention, and also have recent precedent with regards to helping businesses that trade.

Our other recommendations for the Chancellor:

• Boost start-up access and SME exposure to government contracts as these can act as an accelerator

• Unleash experienced older workers into the workforce to support entrepreneurial activity

• Scrap and replace the business rates system to give start-up retailers more access to high street space including pop-ups, benefiting the whole community

• Stamp out late payments and consider recent measures from the Dutch Government to mandate 30-day terms to larger firms procuring from smaller ones

• Become a tax innovator and lead the world in virtual assistants and AI to make tax simpler to pay and collect

Read Enterprise Nation’s detailed asks submitted to the Chancellor here.