Research carried out by London-based accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young into business incorporation for year end December 2015 found 18 of the 20 lowest areas for business births - the number of new businesses started per 10,000 of the population – were in the devolved nations.
England’s average business birth rate was at 53 per 10,000, with Scotland at 40, Wales at 37 and Northern Ireland at 29. The bottom four of 360 UK areas for business birth rates were all in Wales, with Vale of Glamorgan bottom of the pile on 16 per 10,000. Only two of the bottom 20 areas were in England – St Helens and Torridge – while the average rate in London was 64, exactly four times that of Vale of Glamorgan.
UHY said that a lack of support from the government has resulted in fewer startups in the Celtic Fringe, and that greater tax incentives could persuade more entrepreneurs to start businesses in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning (14 August), UHY partner Colin Jones said that government support for devolved business had been “far less visible” than in England, pointing to examples such as the Silicon Roundabout in London and the Northern Powerhouse.
He said: “Areas in the Northern Powerhouse receive significant investment from the UK government in support for new businesses, and now the same needs to happen in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
“It is important that any future investment by the UK government into new business creation is evenly spread throughout the country, rather than just a few select areas.”
Print industry reaction was mixed, with some playing down the connotations of the research and others believing it is representative of the current state of business in the devolved nations.
Northern Ireland-based DigitalPrinting.co.uk managing director Gary White was surprised by the results but agreed with UHY that better incentives are required for both small and large businesses.
“There need to be incentives for larger businesses to open in Northern Ireland, as small businesses then set up to support those businesses," said White.
“I thought Northern Ireland would be the same as everywhere else so in my opinion I think Brexit has something to do with it, Northern Ireland is a special case as so much of what we do is cross-border. We are concerned about it because we sell quite a lot to Southern Ireland, we have a large customer base there and we have seen what’s happening.”
Stephen Docherty, managing director of Scottish book printer Bell & Bain, said anyone considering starting a new business now would have to do it “through a labour of love” more than anything else.
“Scotland has the highest ratio of profit-growing businesses in the UK so there are masses of people with ideas ready to go and the only thing holding us back is the government looking for money and being squeezed a little too much as it is," said Docherty.
“The range of pay we have to pay out now - coupled with taxes - there aren't a lot of incentives to go and start a business. I personally wouldn’t go and start up a business in any part of the UK at the minute because it’s too hard, and it’s such a shame.”
Solway Print managing director Matthew Ronnie, who oversaw the relocation of Solway’s printing operations from London to Scotland two years ago, said that “the need for business was probably a factor”, along with population numbers.
Ronnie said: “I don’t think that we’ve got any more constraints than in England apart from the fact that our customer base is smaller, if you’re being direct about it. We see that with US clients, for every 10,000 or so we sell, they would be selling 25,000. You could interpret that to the England/Scotland divide but then one of our biggest customers is based in London.
“When you look at the numbers between the two countries, London has more people than the whole of Scotland put together. It’s a factor per 10,000 but I’d like to think that we’re an entrepreunerial-spirited place.”
Andrew Jones, managing director of South Wales-based Stephens & George, said that it was difficult to read too much into the results and that “at the end of the day, people go into business for their own reasons”.
“I can’t think of any links between the two. There are less people in the devolved countries, 60 million in England compared to 3.5 million in Wales, so I suppose that would be a factor,” he added.
