New ideas? COVID-19 new waves? New normal? SME Renaissance?
Before the start of the pandemic, the Genesis policy team had begun to work on new sets of policy ideas for the SME sector. Life now is different and there will be much to reassess in coming months; thus the recent Genesis work on an SME focussed UK Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Business as usual work had looked at:
- More effective legislation against late payment and related oppressive practices such as prejudicial contract terms.
- Agreeing a BREXIT trade deal with the EU and firming up worldwide free trade deals
- Simpler access to longer-term finance
- Online sales, tax fraud and the high street
- The reform of business rates
- Simpler and more effective support for business education.
- Other people-related issues such as good local housing and healthcare
- Introducing new technology and systems
- Tax, business regulation and business support simplification
- Amendment of the governments IR 35 contractor and SME start-up taxes
- Of course, there is no business as usual today.
However, many of the ideas in the paper Genesis had prepared as the first instalment on some of the above topics are going to have similar or increased relevance when we move ahead. This includes issues such as late payment, online fraud and access to finance. So we thought we would share that draft paper, knowing that something or a rewrite will be necessary for a few months in our very different context.