Will the new enterprise tsar help make life for small business easier?

From the BBC News, Politics section, 1st November 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11663262

Lord Young replaces Lord Sugar as enterprise tsar

Lord Young is also advising the government on reforms to health and safety legislation.

 

David Cameron has appointed former Cabinet minister Lord Young as his enterprise tsar with a remit to cut red tape for small business.

Downing Street says the Conservative peer will carry out a “brutally honest” review of strategies designed to encourage new start-ups.

Mr Cameron said he wanted “nothing less than a wholesale change in attitude” from government towards small business.

Lord Young replaces Lord Sugar, who was named enterprise tsar by Gordon Brown.

The Apprentice star was fired by Mr Cameron when the coalition government took office in May.

‘Make life easier’

Lord Young, who served as trade secretary under Margaret Thatcher, will juggle the unpaid enterprise post with his other role as the PM’s adviser on health and safety.

He said: “I’ll be focusing on what barriers government policy has been putting in the way of small business development and helping to advise on what can be done to make life easier for businesses to start and grow.”

His review will aim to:

• Minimise the “bureaucratic burdens” which increase costs and hassle
• Identify ways that government departments can help ensure firms have access to suffiicent finance
• Encourage people to start businesses rather than seek jobs as employees
• Improve the way government listens to the views of small and medium-sized enterprises when designing policy

Mr Cameron said Lord Young brought “his own passion for business and a wealth of experience to the role”.

The PM said small and medium-sized businesses provided 60% of the UK’s jobs, and accounted for half the country’s economic output.

Encouraging their growth is crucial to creating a “new economic dynamism”, he added.

With significant cuts planned for the public sector and up to 500,000 jobs set to be lost, the government is hoping the private sector will expand and create new employment.