‘We are one of the best in Europe’

You would expect a UK Government minister to care about graduate entrepreneurship because it is central to the economy. But there’s another more human reason that Shriti Vadera, Parliamentary under Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, says she is so passionate about the issue. “It’s about people feeling they have the ability to think outside the box and do something for themselves. I think that’s what makes people happy.” She adds, “People think it’s just artists and designers who are creative in the workplace – who express themselves through their work – but actually someone who sells a product in a different way or makes one small change in a manufacturing process is also being creative.”

What’s more, she says, they are expressing themselves in a way that can have a huge impact. And because start-ups and small firms – which is the direction many graduate entrepreneurs decide to go in – tend to be more innovative, more productive and have a more creative element to them, they challenge the more established businesses – which in turn increases productivity overall. “That’s the economy bit,” says Vadera, who from 1999 to 2007 was adviser to Gordon Brown and has therefore been closely involved almost from the outset in his strategy to increase entrepreneurship – the latest stage of which has been the Enterprise Strategy. Vadera believes there has been a huge shift since then. “There are about a million more businesses. They survive longer than they did 10 years ago, with about 92 per cent now surviving after one year and 71 per cent after three years.

“Productivity has increased, with small firms having exceeded productivity levels of big firms. They are more innovative than they were 10 years ago. They tend to grow more and they have more aspiration to grow. They employ more people. There are more women entrepreneurs, which is really important, and there are more people in the working population who have the confidence to consider entrepreneurship. About half believe they have the skills to do this, compared to under 40 per cent in 2001.”

But, she adds, we still have a long way to go. “We are one of the best countries in Europe now, but we’re still not like North America and that’s our aspiration. Indeed, we said in our Enterprise Strategy that we want to be the most enterprising country in the world. I would say we’re looking at a 10-year horizon for that, although that is quite ambitious.”

One of the key areas of focus is women, she says. “We have significantly less women in business than the States. If we had as many proportionally as they do, we would have 900,000 more businesses, so it is really central stuff.”

Vadera insists she does not hold the States up as “this huge amazing country that are doing something we’re not”. “It’s just that we know they have a higher productivity than us. We are way behind. It’s perfectly plausible that we can catch up and we have been showing huge strides. But one of the elements that is hardest to shift – and I think this is around our culture – is people’s attitudes. In the US, if you set up a business and you fail, it’s fine. People just ask you what’s your next venture? That’s the culture we need here.”

Vadera is particularly impressed with the extent to which universities have acknowledged entrepreneurship as important. “But I think they could still do more and we are working with them on that.” In fact, she feels everyone could be doing more. “That said, I think everyone who could be involved is now involved and I wouldn’t have been able to say that with confidence even five years ago. I visited a school in Slough recently, where they had a whole building dedicated to enterprise. It was absolutely incredible. The young people were doing things such as starting juice bars. Different people would have a stint at running it and they had to buy the product and get a margin. The result is that entrepreneurship is now the highest ranking thing people in that school want to do. That’s higher than things such as becoming a footballer.”

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