Back to Business

The Government should: 

•  Set an explicit goal of encouraging more people to start their own business, particularly women and ethnic minority entrepreneurs.
•  Encourage more school pupils and college and university students to consider a career in a small business or to start out on their own through enterprise education and careers guidance.
• Commit to supporting the Start-Up Loans scheme for the duration of the next parliament, as well as the New Enterprise Allowance, to help people to go from unemployment to being their own boss.

The Government should:

• Help the self-employed learn new skills by giving tax relief on training in new skills, such as digital skills, currently only available for employees.
• Expand digital training programmes, as FSB has been doing with our partnerships with Facebook and Google.
• Focus the mid-life MOT on the self-employed.

The Government should: 

• Introduce an adoption allowance for the self-employed so the self-employed have support when they adopt as employees do.
• Uprate the Maternity Allowance offered to the self-employed so it is at least level with the most basic support employees are entitled to through Statutory Maternity Pay. A Paternity Allowance should also be introduced.

The Government should: 

• Support self-employment as a route into work by extending the start-up period, reflecting the reality that it takes more than one year to start a viable business.
• Assess the Minimum Income Floor on a quarterly basis, so the system works for those who don’t get paid every month in arrears.

The Government should: 

• Demand the banks act so that the self-employed and small business owners are able to get a mortgage as easily as those they employ.
• Ensure the self-employed are assisted to access pensions and savings where take-up is now far below the levels of those who are auto-enrolled.
• Deliver the pension dashboard so that individuals can better track, plan and monitor to prepare for retirement.

The Government should: 

Pledge to ensure that for any measure brought forward to help employees in the next parliament, a corresponding action to help the self-employed should be introduced. This need not, and often cannot, be the same action. But this measure is necessary to ensure that the needs of the self-employed are no longer forgotten.

The Government should:

• Back small businesses that create jobs by pledging to drive down the non-wage cost of employment and uprate the Employment Allowance to respond to the rising cost of employment.
• Ensure that the Low Pay Commission maintains its vital independent role in setting the wage floor.
• Bbe free to deviate from a political trajectory, if economic and labour market conditions warrant it to do so.
• Support small employers who help get people into work by introducing an Employers National Insurance holiday for firms that take on individuals who are furthest from the labour market and help communities that face significant disadvantages. Groups that should be prioritised for help include those with disabilities, care leavers, ex-offenders and the long-term unemployed.

Starting, running and growing a business isn’t easy – the Government should have a major focus on providing sufficient training in leadership and management in small businesses to close the UK’s productivity gap.

The Government should: 

• Support high quality technical education by providing proper funding for apprenticeships in small businesses and fixing the apprenticeship funding system in the long-term so that, for example, level 2 and 3 apprenticeships offered by non-levy paying employers can continue.
• Act to ensure that small businesses can offer high quality T Level placements to train the next generation, covering at least some of the costs of small businesses that host these placements. A fund should provide direct support to small business employers providing work placements. This should be similar in scope and size to the fund that has been set up for training providers.

The Government should: 

Put retraining centre stage so that small businesses can adapt and thrive in the future. If no one is to be left behind, the next Government must help all workers and business owners to retrain in new skills, especially digital skills, and support should be prioritised for those most in need. Any national retraining schemes should be designed with small business in mind. Small businesses and the self-employed, as well as trade unions and larger businesses, must be involved in the design of the schemes.

The Government should: 

• Introduce a new sick pay rebate for firms supporting their employees through a period of ill-health.
• Roll out additional occupational health provision to support the self-employed and small businesses.
• Focus on helping the self-employed, small businesses and everyone they employ to look after their mental health. We need to not only tackle stigma, but improve outcomes, services and support for those who are struggling with their mental health, including how it affects people at work. We are working with Heads Together to help make that happen.

The Government should: 

Help employers with auto-enrolment. The policy has been a success in helping move people to save for their retirement. However, it has so far proved administratively difficult and costly. We would like the next Government to focus on making the scheme as easy as possible for small employers to use and to rely on proven ‘nudge’ measures rather than cost increases to expand the effectiveness of this scheme.

The Government should: 

• Make sure the sector can deliver the 30 hours free childcare, and other childcare support, so it remains on offer for parents. The cost of providing childcare has increased in many areas, outstripping available funding.
• Improve the usability of the childcare service website and the customer service support available to parents and carers to register for childcare entitlements.
• Back the small childcare businesses that enable more people to work; in particular by providing support in the form of 100% business rate relief in England, as has already been done in Scotland and Wales.

The Government should: 

• Encourage and support more Armed Forces veterans to start their own businesses. We are working with X-Forces Enterprise to help make this happen.
• Help make sure small employers are benefitting from taking on veterans, by ensuring there is a simplified way of understanding and recognising the equivalence between military skills and civilian qualifications.
• Make financial support available for those military service leavers in need of further training and qualifications to achieve their post-military ambitions.
• Introduce a financial incentive for smaller employers to recruit more military service leavers, in the form of a one-year holiday from Employer National Insurance Contributions.

The Government should: 

• Remove barriers to growth in the business rates system, take out more small businesses from the system altogether, and increase and expand current retailers’ support so it is on a permanent footing, and make sure this helps the food and drink sector too. Areas with high property values need extra support from increased reliefs, in order for small business in these areas to benefit.
• Fix the Check Challenge Appeal system for small business rates because it simply does not work for small businesses. If businesses are to have any confidence that their business rates bills are fair, then they must be able to challenge incorrect calculations and errors without fear of penalty and within a system that wants to eradicate errors, not hide them.
• Commit to the Towns Fund providing investment for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Increase car parking availability, make sure more spaces are offered free of charge, especially at key times of the year, and increase buses and green modes of transport so more people can easily access the high street.
• Make sure that the planning system, local banking services and the public realm are attracting people to our town centres. Consider introducing Enterprise Zones into areas that most need support.

The Government should: 

• Focus on the local transport system as much as national projects – spending on local roads should be double its current rate and all local transport spending should be ring-fenced. In addition, local roads should be included within the scope of the new roads fund.
• Ongoing road maintenance, rather than piecemeal funding, should be prioritised to prevent future surface defects becoming potholes.
• Implement the Williams Review recommendations and support both passenger and rail freight enhancements. Provide funding for better quality public bus services, particularly in our rural communities.
• Give certainty to long-term infrastructure projects, committing to build the airport capacity; local, regional and high speed rail and energy infrastructure we need. Devolve Air Passenger Duty to Wales to support the development of new international trade and tourism routes.
• Reverse chronic underinvestment in rail infrastructure in Wales by committing to the electrification of the South Wales mainline to Swansea and investing in Growth Track 360 in North Wales.

The Government should: 

• Give small businesses the broadband connections they need, with full fibre, or at least gigabit connectivity to all premises by 2025 and all businesses to have download speeds of more than 10 Mbps by the end of 2021, irrespective of whether or not they have asked to be connected under the Universal Service Obligation.
• Ensure every community, including rural and coastal communities, has a good mobile phone signal; close the mobile coverage gap between UK nations over the parliamentary term; facilitate a shared rural network, including to increase coverage in the worst served regions; deliver the 4G and 5G spectrum auctions on time and ring-fence the money raised to be spent on infrastructure programmes.

The Government should: 

• Commit to bring forward a small house builders strategy to reverse the decline in the number of small house builders from 12,000 in 1998 to only 2,500 today. Affordable housing is a must for firms looking to live and recruit in areas with high property values, and rural areas.
• Solve the care crisis. Small businesses are a key part of the delivery of adult social care, and the quality of adult social care is key to so many who work in and run small businesses. These services must be properly funded and designed with small businesses in mind.
• Ensure public services can use small business innovation by splitting up big public sector contracts, moving from closed framework agreements to dynamic purchasing systems in public procurement and ending late payment across all public sector supply chains once and for all, aiming for more than a third of public sector procurement to be with small businesses by 2022. This target should not be extended again.

The Government should: 

• Set clear and certain environmental targets, policies and incentives to help small businesses know what they need to do in sufficient time to build a zero-carbon economy.
• FSB recognises the significant damage that air pollution does to people and the environment. Small firms want to play their part in transitioning to a cleaner, healthier environment, but must be empowered to be part of the solution. As Clean Air Zones and Low Emission Zones are rolled out across the UK, many small firms will need time and support to adapt and change the way they operate, particularly those tied into lease agreements as a result of encouragement from previous governments.
• Small businesses, particularly in rural and coastal communities, need assistance to access insurance and protection from flooding and environmental damage.

The Government should: 

• Combat business crime which costs the small business community more than £15 billion a year, wrecks livelihoods and ruins lives. Fifty per cent of small businesses have been a victim of crime in the last two years. The next Government must ensure proper measures are taken forward to tackle both cyber and traditional crimes carried out against small businesses promptly, sensitively and effectively.
• Ensure the number of police per 100,000 of the population be brought closer to the European average of 352 per 100,000 of the population. This should come alongside further considerations toward refining the police funding formula.
• Introduce a code of practice which sets out a performance framework for police and crime commissioners (PCCs). This could include good practice benchmarks on engagement with the local business community.

The Government should: 

• Create new export vouchers to assist firms with the costs of exporting to a new market for the first time. Work at every level, including with international bodies such as the World Trade
• Organisation, to make trade easier for small firms. The Government should review and build on the GREAT campaign to better promote the UK around the world.
• Simplify the support available for innovative new firms by making the R&D tax credit system more accessible and open to small businesses.
• Prioritise high quality business support and a well-run Shared Prosperity Fund to boost regional growth.
• Make sure local industrial strategies have a proper focus on helping the self-employed and micro businesses: addressing their skills needs through Skills Advisory Panels; delivering leadership and management training to small business owners and ensuring that Local Enterprise Partnerships adequately address the needs of small firms.

• Throughout the EU exit process so far we have been clear that any deal must include a proper transition period so small businesses can prepare in advance for any changes to the rules with which they have to comply with on a day-to-day basis. We do not believe more than one set of rule changes for small businesses is desirable.
• We believe that by working both domestically and internationally, the next UK Government can improve the regulatory environment for small firms. However, where any changes to regulations are made, including as a result of any Brexit deal, the Government should manage this process in such a way that it is as simple as possible for firms to manage.
• A transition must be long enough that small firms have adequate time to prepare. The dates of any transition period should be considered in light of a longer than previously agreed timetable for achieving a Brexit deal.
• A proper transition period will enable the UK-EU Joint Committee the time needed to ensure trading arrangements between Northern Ireland and Great Britain are as frictionless as possible, in both directions, so that additional complexity for small businesses is kept to an absolute minimum.

• Over a fifth of FSB members are exporters, and in total one in three either export and/or import.
• A future Brexit deal must make sure that the UK has international trading arrangements that work well for small firms.
• This means tackling both tariff and non-tariff barriers with overseas markets, and removing wherever possible any barriers to trade. The next Government must take account of the relative difficulty small businesses have compared to larger businesses in managing complex rules and regulations. Any change in our trading arrangements should be accompanied by Brexit vouchers, to provide support to firms especially affected by new procedures or who need to adapt to new markets.
• We would also like the next Government to focus on doubling the number of small business exporters. Due to the number of small businesses who do not export but have done before or would consider doing so in future, we believe that doubling the number of exporters is a realistic objective that deserves Government support.
• We need to see significant focus on operations at all our borders, not least Dover/Calais but also for the new Government to work closely with FSB Northern Ireland and the business community there.
• We also stand by our sister organisation in Gibraltar, the Gibraltar Federation of Small Businesses
• (GFSB), for future arrangements that protect the future of the small business community there, too

• Regardless of the content of any future Brexit deal, it is crucial in any case that the UK’s immigration system is open to talent from overseas. Poor ‘access to skilled labour’ is consistently cited by small businesses as one of the top barriers to growth.
• Equally, any new system must work for those who want to start businesses in the UK as well as those who seek employment. We must ensure the UK remains an open, attractive place for entrepreneurs from across the world to invest and to start or run a business.
• The current system for employing people from outside of the EU is costly, complex and inaccessible for a large proportion of small businesses. It is vital that the faults in this system are not allowed to continue to restrict access to talent from overseas, especially in relation to any changes to immigration from the EU27. A reformed system must not rely solely on individual businesses to deal with complex bureaucracy in order to access overseas talent, nor place high arbitrary wage floors on employers.
• UK immigration policy must be made to work for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as England.
• The question of encouraging talent does not just relate to workers from overseas. One crucial aspect of any Brexit deal is the question of what the UK does next with important business support schemes, in addition to the need to establish and promote financial institutions that will support small businesses to grow.
• FSB’s view is that these schemes are very important, particularly for productivity growth, but many aspects of how these schemes are run could be improved. We would like the next Government to prioritise high quality business support, including reforming any programmes that currently make use of EU funding. Business support has huge potential for increasing the success of small businesses across the UK. To that end, proposals for a Shared Prosperity Fund should seek to maintain levels of funding to devolved nations and ensure devolved nations have responsibility for setting priorities for the funding.