Backing your business – launch of the UK Government’s Small Business Plan
The new director of small business strategy, Ros Wall, together with Paula Crofts, director for business growth, and John Thompson, deputy director for SME strategy and the Business Growth Service, have unveiled the UK Government’s Small Business Plan, titled Backing your business. This marks a significant milestone in the Plan for Change and demonstrates a bold commitment to supporting SMEs across the UK.
From faster payments and easier access to finance, to cutting red tape and launching a new Business Growth Service, the plan is all about backing businesses to thrive.
What’s in the plan?
This plan is built on five key pillars, shaped by listening to businesses across the UK and reflecting their priorities: saving time and money, improving access to finance, and opening up new opportunities.
Future‑proofing business skills
- Launching digital adoption pilots and working with industry to enhance SME tech skills.
- Funding leadership and management training and establishing a Business Mentoring Council.
- Supporting the next generation of young entrepreneurs via improved access to enterprise education and a new ‘Youth Entrepreneur’ King’s Awards for Enterprise.
- Providing an extra £1.2 billion per year for skills to better meet SMEs’ needs.
Fixing the fundamentals
- Legislating to end the scourge of late payments, which currently costs the UK economy £11 billion each year.
- Modernising the tax and customs systems to ease business burdens and save time.
- Supporting firms to decarbonise, lowering energy costs, and boosting training for retrofit jobs.
- Cutting regulatory admin costs by 25%, saving businesses time and money.
Unlocking access to finance
- Offering 69,000 start‑up loans, including new ‘green’ loan options, all with business mentor support.
- Extending the British Business Bank’s Growth Guarantee Scheme.
- Injecting £3 billion into the British Business Bank to help lenders provide more small business loans.
- Allocating £340 million for regional equity investment to improve capital access outside London.
- Introducing a lender code of conduct on personal guarantees for government‑backed loans.
Backing the everyday economy
- Introducing a new licensing framework to make it easier to open or modify cafés and bars.
- Creating high street and growth incubators to support local businesses.
- Reforming business rates with permanently lower rates for many retail, hospitality, and leisure properties from April 2026.
Opening up opportunities
- Launching the Business Growth Service to streamline advice and support, including a new digital offer via business.gov.uk.
- Prioritising SMEs in public sector and government contracts by setting firm SME targets for departments.
- Supporting under‑represented entrepreneurs through better data collection.
- Providing improved export assistance and expanding UK Export Finance capacity by £20 billion.
Find out more about the Plan our-plan-for-small-and-medium-sized-businesses.
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