Jamila Robertson is an entrepreneur and parliamentary candidate.
Whatever your opinion on how the Government handled Covid, it is undeniable that schemes such as Furlough and Kickstart proved to be a lifeline for many. The knock-on effect of Covid on everything from commerce to student confidence was colossal, yet we can be truly staggered at the fact that we have come out of the pandemic with record employment.
However, we still find ourselves with 1.1 million job vacancies and 1.4 million people on Universal Credit looking for work. The three largest groups on Universal Credit since the pandemic are the Over-50s, women, and those suffering from long-term illness. It is on the latter I should focus today.
My suggestion is Universal Enterprise, a relaunch of the Enterprise Allowance scheme targeted at women.
The Enterprise Allowance scheme, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1981 and reintroduced as the New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) by David Cameron in 2011, aimed to support job seekers into entrepreneurship, by providing them with access to a business mentor, financial support for up to 6 months and the chance to apply for a loan of up to £25,000 to help with start-up costs.
The scheme helped to launch more than 105,000 businesses by 2017 and 40 per cent of those starting new businesses through the scheme were women.
NEA was discontinued in January 2022. In October to December 2022, 110,000 more women were working as employees than in January to March 2020. The number of self-employed women fell by 119,000 over the same period. The number of women on Universal Credit increased by 3 per cent to 56 per cent: meaning that nearly 60 per cent of those claiming Universal Credit are women.
In the same period, 5.21 million women aged 16–64 were economically inactive, 24.9 per cent of women in this age group. Conversely, there were 3.68 million men aged 16–64 who were inactive (17.8 per cent).
According to the Chancellor’s 2023 Spring Budget, the female economic inactivity rate in the UK is higher than that of the best-performing economies in the OECD. Matching the female inactivity rate of the Netherlands, a top performer, would add more than 1 million people to the labour force.
It is probable that female inactivity is in part, due to childcare. The Spring Budget supports this, stating that there are 1.7 million people in the UK who report looking after their family or home as their main reason for inactivity; and around 435,000 people in England with a child under 3, who are inactive due to their caring responsibilities.
The Budget adds that many of this group report that they would like to work but cannot afford childcare, so the Government is right to address the cost of childcare. The Government is rightly supporting parents back into work by providing 30 hours a week of free childcare for eligible working parents of children aged 9 months to 3 years.
This will be rolled out in phases from April 2024, which leaves room for a solution like Universal Enterprise, to encourage more women into work in the meantime. In short, we need more female entrepreneurs.
Being an entrepreneur means you can set your own hours and your own rules. Whether you want an on-site crèche or nanny, ‘bring your pet to work’ freedoms, or a 3-day hybrid week; being their own boss means that more women can make work work for them.
Going further, the Universal Enterprise scheme could include tax credits or other incentives for those who create companies in areas of need, such as nurseries and corporate creches, social care, local transport, or green and tech-focused initiatives. Funding could come via the Department for Business and Trade’s British Business Bank and range from a deferred repayment loan, repayable at the point of profitability like a student loan, to a traditional equity loan.
A female-focused enterprise scheme has a knock-on effect on the Over 50s, many of whom are committed to retirement out of commitment to their children and grandchildren. Instead, they could lend their experience to their children’s new ventures, or other startups and SMEs.
Whilst a scheme like Universal Enterprise is a short-term spend, it is essentially cost-neutral as most participants would be on Universal Credit anyway. Universal Credit should be a lifeline and not a lifestyle. The key is to get more people off Universal Credit and low incomes and actively contributing to the economy, whilst building a future for themselves and their families. This approach has already proven successful with the under-24s. Thanks to the Government’s Kickstart scheme, the number of 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit looking for work has decreased by 10 per cent year on year.
As a female entrepreneur I can second that starting up or scaling in this country is a challenge. Navigating without an initial network is a minefield and the many useful grants the Government offers are specific and usually science or biotech focused. If, for example, you were a childminder wanting to set up your own company, where would you start? This is also where we need to do more work.
According to the British Business Bank only 11p of every £1 invested by Venture Capital goes to women, with less than 1p of this going to all female-founded companies.
Perhaps encouraging more publicly listed companies to support female startups with sponsorship initiatives, prizes, or grants could motivate the private sector, bridge this gap, and would (of course) be tax deductible.
With the recent SVB UK deal, the Government has shown it can facilitate without having to fund; and investing in public assets, in this case human capital, to encourage private investment, is what Conservative governments do best.
Jamila Robertson is an entrepreneur and parliamentary candidate.
Whatever your opinion on how the Government handled Covid, it is undeniable that schemes such as Furlough and Kickstart proved to be a lifeline for many. The knock-on effect of Covid on everything from commerce to student confidence was colossal, yet we can be truly staggered at the fact that we have come out of the pandemic with record employment.
However, we still find ourselves with 1.1 million job vacancies and 1.4 million people on Universal Credit looking for work. The three largest groups on Universal Credit since the pandemic are the Over-50s, women, and those suffering from long-term illness. It is on the latter I should focus today.
My suggestion is Universal Enterprise, a relaunch of the Enterprise Allowance scheme targeted at women.
The Enterprise Allowance scheme, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1981 and reintroduced as the New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) by David Cameron in 2011, aimed to support job seekers into entrepreneurship, by providing them with access to a business mentor, financial support for up to 6 months and the chance to apply for a loan of up to £25,000 to help with start-up costs.
The scheme helped to launch more than 105,000 businesses by 2017 and 40 per cent of those starting new businesses through the scheme were women.
NEA was discontinued in January 2022. In October to December 2022, 110,000 more women were working as employees than in January to March 2020. The number of self-employed women fell by 119,000 over the same period. The number of women on Universal Credit increased by 3 per cent to 56 per cent: meaning that nearly 60 per cent of those claiming Universal Credit are women.
In the same period, 5.21 million women aged 16–64 were economically inactive, 24.9 per cent of women in this age group. Conversely, there were 3.68 million men aged 16–64 who were inactive (17.8 per cent).
According to the Chancellor’s 2023 Spring Budget, the female economic inactivity rate in the UK is higher than that of the best-performing economies in the OECD. Matching the female inactivity rate of the Netherlands, a top performer, would add more than 1 million people to the labour force.
It is probable that female inactivity is in part, due to childcare. The Spring Budget supports this, stating that there are 1.7 million people in the UK who report looking after their family or home as their main reason for inactivity; and around 435,000 people in England with a child under 3, who are inactive due to their caring responsibilities.
The Budget adds that many of this group report that they would like to work but cannot afford childcare, so the Government is right to address the cost of childcare. The Government is rightly supporting parents back into work by providing 30 hours a week of free childcare for eligible working parents of children aged 9 months to 3 years.
This will be rolled out in phases from April 2024, which leaves room for a solution like Universal Enterprise, to encourage more women into work in the meantime. In short, we need more female entrepreneurs.
Being an entrepreneur means you can set your own hours and your own rules. Whether you want an on-site crèche or nanny, ‘bring your pet to work’ freedoms, or a 3-day hybrid week; being their own boss means that more women can make work work for them.
Going further, the Universal Enterprise scheme could include tax credits or other incentives for those who create companies in areas of need, such as nurseries and corporate creches, social care, local transport, or green and tech-focused initiatives. Funding could come via the Department for Business and Trade’s British Business Bank and range from a deferred repayment loan, repayable at the point of profitability like a student loan, to a traditional equity loan.
A female-focused enterprise scheme has a knock-on effect on the Over 50s, many of whom are committed to retirement out of commitment to their children and grandchildren. Instead, they could lend their experience to their children’s new ventures, or other startups and SMEs.
Whilst a scheme like Universal Enterprise is a short-term spend, it is essentially cost-neutral as most participants would be on Universal Credit anyway. Universal Credit should be a lifeline and not a lifestyle. The key is to get more people off Universal Credit and low incomes and actively contributing to the economy, whilst building a future for themselves and their families. This approach has already proven successful with the under-24s. Thanks to the Government’s Kickstart scheme, the number of 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit looking for work has decreased by 10 per cent year on year.
As a female entrepreneur I can second that starting up or scaling in this country is a challenge. Navigating without an initial network is a minefield and the many useful grants the Government offers are specific and usually science or biotech focused. If, for example, you were a childminder wanting to set up your own company, where would you start? This is also where we need to do more work.
According to the British Business Bank only 11p of every £1 invested by Venture Capital goes to women, with less than 1p of this going to all female-founded companies.
Perhaps encouraging more publicly listed companies to support female startups with sponsorship initiatives, prizes, or grants could motivate the private sector, bridge this gap, and would (of course) be tax deductible.
With the recent SVB UK deal, the Government has shown it can facilitate without having to fund; and investing in public assets, in this case human capital, to encourage private investment, is what Conservative governments do best.