Has the British Government Encouraged Enterprise?

Abstract

In May 1979 Lord Joseph, the newly appointed Secretary of State for Industry, believed that enterprise and small firms were inseparably linked. Entrepreneurs founded small firms. Thus the Queen’s Speech, delivered at the State Opening of Parliament and outlining the Conservative government’s future programme, included the pledge that ‘My government will stimulate the development of small businesses on which the creation of jobs so heavily depends.’ In 1981 John MacGregor was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of Industry and given special responsibility for small firms. He believed that small firms provided new jobs, gave diversity and variety (and hence stability) to Britain’s regional economies, and possessed the virtue of flexibility — being innovative, productive and resourceful — in their reaction to changing British and foreign markets.

There are two key elements in the Government’s economic policy: to keep down inflation and offer real incentives for enterprise, in order to generate jobs. Low inflation is the very bedrock of an expanding economy but it is not sufficient in itself. It is the growth of enterprise, the efforts of millions of our people engaged in the creation of businesses large and small that is the real driving force of the economy.

(Lifting the Burden, Cmnd 9571, July 1985, p. 1)