The borough’s businesswomen help drive small business policy says Sir Keir Starmer

The businesswomen of Swindon were instrumental in driving the government’s new plan to help and support small business, Keir Starmer said.

The Prime Minister, flanked by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds, announced the government’s small business plan at the Workshed – the units of the GWR Carriageworks in central Swindon converted into offices and shared working spaces for small and start-up businesses.

And he said there was a reason for being there: “I was in this very same room three years ago when were in opposition, and we were speaking to women entrepreneurs then.

“There was a real buzz in the room and I spoke with some amazing women and we listened to what they told us and I said at the time that if we got into government, we would use what they told us to develop our policies to help small businesses.”

He said he was back in Swindon now he is in government to deliver on the promise he made here when in opposition.

Mr Starmer said the business women he’d spoken to has talked about the difficulties in getting start-up funding at reasonable rates and this has led to the announcement of start-up loans for 69,000 companies costing £4billion.

Before speaking to regional and national broadcasters and the Local Democracy Reporter, Mr Starmer spoke with local small business people.

He said: “They were pleased to learn that we are going to bring into law penalties for late payment of bills. That was something they said was a real issue – I was staggered to learn 38 small businesses a day go out of business because of late payments.

“And the small business owners I spoke to said it’s often the big companies who don’t pay on time and that leaves them to carry all the risk.

“We also spoke about business rates – we are going to bring them down and stabilise them for a significant amount of time, and skills. We need to get local colleges in Swindon and Wiltshire equipping young people with the skills local businesses need.”

Craig Duff who runs Nanogreen cleaning and facilities management company said: “Doing something about late payments is huge for us, so that’s very important, as is the business rates review.

“It looks like they have listened to small businesses.”

Fiona Scott, who runs media and PR consultancy Scott Media was also able to speak to the Prime Minister and Mr Reynolds.

She said: ”Skills are so important. Many of us have tried to take on an apprentice, but the local colleges aren’t providing young people with the skills we need. And it’s often the soft skills you learn doing arts and music subjects.”

The measures outlined by the Prime Minister will be made law in different pieces of legislation.