Dear Financial Voice Reader,
What did the budget do for entrepreneurs. Here are some of my highlights especially for British Indian Entrepreneurs.
Jobs, R&D/technology and innovation
To build on the UK’s position as a world leader in innovation and new technologies, the Budget also announces £1.6 billion in science and innovation including investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum computing, future manufacturing, and nuclear fusion.
If you’re an entrepreneur, I recommend on focussing on AI. Up to £50m in new Turing AI Fellowships to bring the best global researchers in AI to the UK, and £100m in an international fellowship scheme £115m to extend funding for the Digital Catapult, which has centres in the North East, South East and Northern Ireland. Check out these centres if you’re a startup.
Entrepreneurs/digital
The government is backing business and entrepreneurship by increasing access to finance for private sector investment and helping people who want to start and grow businesses. This includes action to unlock pension fund investment in growing firms and policies to raise business productivity. The Budget is also boosting exports by extending UK Export Finance’s direct lending scheme by £2 billion in 2020-21 and 2021-22. The export finance scheme is worth checking out.
Tweaked rules on tax relief for entrepreneurs by extending qualifying period of tax breaks for 12 months to 2 years
Entrepreneurs pay a lesser rate of tax at 10pc on capital gains when they sell all or part of their business above the annual exempt amount of £11,700
Other headline stats
Wages are growing at fastest rate for 10 years
Inflation 2% next year – meaning real-wage growth in each of the next 5 years
Growth 1.6% next year
Fiscal forecast
Deficit less than 1.4% next year – falling to 0.8% by 2023-24
Departmental spending
Extra £20bn funding for NHS to 2022-23. If your company works on innovative solutions for the NHS – get hold of NHS Innovations team.
Additional £1bn for MoD – including boosting cyber capability. Again, as with AI, if you’re an entrepreneuer – check out Cyber and see if you can be in that field.
Enterprise
Extend the funding of the British Business Bank’s Start-Up Loans Programme to 2021, to continue to provide loans and mentoring to entrepreneurs
To provide enhanced support to UK businesses, DIT will expand its network of advisers in Europe
Retail (as so many British Indians in this area)
Announcement of a £675m Future High Streets Fund to councils to help invest in improvements to high streets. Get on your Council!
For 2 years from April 2019, the government will cut business rate bills for smaller English retailers to be cut by one third.
