Bring back the environment of enterprise - This Is Business

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Bring back the environment of enterprise, by Kamal Dhutia

If wealth-creating entrepreneurs thrive through ambition and risk-taking why are we tying them in tonnes of red tape?

Entrepreneurs are a certain breed of people. They take risks, they work hard and they are ambitious. In the process of growth, employment takes place, commercial activity involving other companies and other indirect benefits materialise.
The bottom line is that the entrepreneur will only do this to increase his standard of living and to become wealthy, and the bi-product of his drive is that everybody around him benefits in some form or another. And why do they matter? Small businesses in the UK employ 58% of the UK’s private sector workforce. Together they contribute half of UK GDP and employ more than 12 million people.
It is this drive and enterprise that is, in the present climate, being ‘dampened’ or - shall I dare say - being discouraged? If we take a couple of national issues that filter to the local level, the story is the same.
Red Tape, the amount of legislation thrown onto Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is growing all the time. Employment legislation is now a minefield, Health and Safety has gone beyond logic and these are only two of the many issues that SMEs have to contend with.
At a recent BERR Better Regulation meeting, it was revealed that there are currently 1,600 laws that affect the business community, involving 20,000 items of work/actions by businesses. Local Government should ensure that they do not add to our woes by piling up the paper mountain.
The big hot topic at the moment is the possible introduction of road charging and congestion. The flow of traffic in Leicester and Leicestshire is important to the local economy. The local and county councils need to take in the views of the local business organisations, which I believe they are presently doing, but to be labelled ‘traffic light city’ of the UK isn’t a badge that Leicester should be proud of displaying. The congestion issue has to be tackled with common sense and practicality but I fear that pressure from central Government and the temptation of extra revenue will take over.
The environment of enterprise, to allow entrepreneurs to do what they are good at, has to be re-created. Businesses need to be let loose, legally, to enable them to compete in the global world and not be frustrated in having their control taken over by legislation.

Publication date: 25/04/2008 17:48:04