Press: How Lord Sugar’s Enterprise Revolution Could Create 800,000 Jobs - Byrne

Lord Sugar’s Enterprise Revolution Could Create 800,000 Jobs - Byrne Lord Sugar’s enterprise revolution could create up to 800,000 new jobs around Britain, according to new figures published by Liam Byrne MP today. The Apprentice star has been appointed by the Government to encourage more people to start their own business all over Britain. Mr Byrne today pinpointed the 205 parts of Britain where too few people are taking the plunge and starting up a new firm. Mr Byrne revealed new House of Commons library figures showing:

• In the average UK community, one in every 26 people starts a business. But some communities are far more enterprising than others.

• In top-performing Camden, one in every nine people starts a business - but in Sunderland, only one in 50 starts a firm.

• If every community was as entrepreneurial as the national average, Britain would boast 336,585 new businesses - creating over 840,000 new jobs - more than the number of people on unemployment benefit

Yet the Queen’s Speech last week offered almost no measures to support start-ups and high growth firms. And fresh analysis shows over one million Brits left entrepreneurial activity in the last three years. Mr Byrne released the figures to coincide with the release of his new book, Dragons: How Ten Entrepreneurs Built Britain, published last week. Mr Byrne, who was an entrepreneur and a Fulbright Scholar at the Harvard Business School, said: ‘Britain was built by some of the most extraordinary entrepreneurs in history. And while we’re more enterprising than we used to be, we’ve got a long, long way to go. ‘It’s great the Government has hired Lord Sugar to help Britain’s entrepreneurs set up shop. Now we know which parts of Britain he needs to help. ‘Great entrepreneurs change history - by inventing the future. We need to help them - or we’ll fall behind. 'So we need Lord Sugar to get stuck into those parts of Britain that need a little boost - and we need him to lobby the government to far for enterprise education, start-up funding, and government contracts for young business. These are the kind of policies that our competitors use all the time.' ENDS Embargo: 0001 Tuesday 31st May 2016

1. Liam Byrne’s book Dragons: Ten Entrepreneurs Who Built Britain is published by Head of Zeus.

2. According to new research from the House of Commons Library if the business startup rate in every local authority across the UK were to increase to at least the current national average – we would see an additional 336,585 new businesses created.

3. According to the House of Commons Library, on average, every new VAT registered business creates 2.5 new jobs. Therefore an additional 336,585 new business startups could create 841,463 new jobs across the UK.

Appendix 1: The 205 local authorities which are less entrepreneurial than the national average House of Commons Library research VAT businesses by local authority across the UK - 2014