Our Plan for Growth
Dated: 01/12/2011

Helping businesses grow is a top priority for the Government

Helping businesses grow is a top priority for the Government. I know the current economic environment presents a very real challenge but we are committed to doing everything we can to enable business to export and invest. The Growth Review, on which the Chancellor reported in the Autumn Statement sets out a range of new measures to support business and encourage growth. In developing this package we have listened to your major concerns.

One relative success story is exports where there has been encouraging growth, especially in emerging markets. Rebalancing the economy towards manufacturing, creative industries, professional and business services and other traded activities is a crucial part of our work.

To help young people into work and enable business to quickly take on new apprentices we are developing our Apprenticeship programme. This will give thousands of small firms that don't currently hire apprentices inducements to take on a new apprentice aged 16 to 24 through the offer of an incentive payment of up to £1,500. This will encourage small businesses to recruit up to 40,000 new apprenticeships in 2012/13.

To make it quicker and easier for companies to take on an apprentice, we will also ensure that every employer is in a position to advertise a vacancy within one month of deciding to take on an apprentice.

We are also taking forward initiatives to help the mid-sized businesses of today grow and export to become the large companies of tomorrow. We will work with UKTI to provide a tailored package of export support to an additional 500 mid-sized businesses per year.

Last week I also set out our plans for overhauling employment tribunals. We will also undertake a call for evidence on whether the 90 day minimum consultation period for collective redundancies should be reduced. And we will be seeking evidence on proposals to introduce compensated no-fault dismissal for micro firms, and on ways to slim down existing dismissal processes. We do not intend to add to job insecurity.

Across other areas including infrastructure, logistics, the rural economy and open data we are setting out measures to help businesses grow.

Building on what we have done

The measures we are setting out today build on earlier progress. In March, the Chancellor and I published the Plan for Growth, and many specific measures have already been implemented.

We know how important it is for businesses of all sizes to access finance to grow, especially SMEs and looking beyond the current agreements to grow SME lending to a minimum of £76 billion the Government has also introduced credit easing to cut the cost of borrowing.

To reduce the burden of regulation we are overhauling the current stock of regulations through the Red Tape Challenge, resulting in the scrapping or simplifying of 160 regulations so far in the retail and hospitality sectors.

The Regional Growth Fund is a major initiative to support private investment and the £1.4 billion pool of funds has now been allocated. Next year the Green Investment Bank will also be launching its first project.

We have already announced 22 new Enterprise Zones with approval for further zones set out today. These zones will allow areas with real potential to create and support new business. The aim is to attract new start-up firms, with simplified planning rules, super-fast broadband and over £150 million tax breaks for new businesses over the next four years.

Overall, we have already met or reached significant milestones on over 90% of reforms announced in March, detailed information on our progress is at http://www.bis.gov.uk/growth

Restoring growth is our priority. We are focusing now on delivering the policies and measures we have set out.

VINCE CABLE