HSBC creates £8bn UK small business fund May 11, 2015 HSBC has set aside £8bn to lend to small and medium-sized businesses in the UK. The bank's small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) loan offering will reach 43 areas of the country, with Scotland, Birmingham and Manchester, receiving at least £400m each. Fees on qualifying business loans worth between £1,000 and £300,000 will be waived or [...]
General Election 2015: Tungsten Corp CEO Edmund Truell wants more help for small businesses and the privatisation of NHS care provision April 30, 2015 ELECTION COUNTDOWN: 6 DAYS TO GO Every day until the final week of the election campaign, we ask a business leader to say what policies would entice them to vote for a particular party. EDMUND TRUELL: CEO, TUNGSTEN CORP Next week’s General Election promises to be the closest we have seen for [...]
General Election 2015: At least six of the small business owners who signed the Conservative letter of support are also Tory candidates April 27, 2015 At least six of the names that appeared on the open letter purporting to be small businesses backing the Conservatives are in fact Tory candidates. For most of the day, critics have been poring over the list of names to establish whether they are in fact genuine small business owners. Pretty early on, it [...]
General Election 2015: Small business support for Tories is stronger in the south than north, according to 5,000-strong Telegraph letter April 27, 2015 Small businesses in the south of England are the overwhelming backers of the Tory party compared with those located across the rest of the UK, based on the 5,000-strong letter of support published in The Telegraph. The letter, the second signed by business leaders in the lead-up to the General Election, has recieved widespread criticism however, as it [...]
General Election 2015: David Cameron vows to slash £10bn of regulation for small businesses April 27, 2015 David Cameron has said his party is engaged in a "battle for the backbone of Britain" and that meeting small businesses "pumps" him up, unveiling the Tories' small business manifesto in a noticeably more passionate address than in the previous weeks of campaigning. The Conservatives plan to relieve small businesses of £10bn worth of regulation [...]
General Election 2015: Spinning out of control? Small business letter of support sent from CCHQ address, includes dissolved businesses April 27, 2015 Are the Conservatives caught in a PR tailspin of their own making? The Tories may have got the backing of several thousand small businesses, but it seems that this support was not quite as spontaneous as it may appear. Labour supporters are highlighting how the letter was sent from a CCHQ address, and [...]
General Election 2015: Conservatives get the backing of 5,000 small businesses April 27, 2015 The Conservatives have received an endorsement from 5,000 small businesses across the country, who want David Cameron’s party to get the chance to finish what it started. The letter, published in The Telegraph, praises the government for: Their steps to lower taxes, reduce red tape, simplify employment law and get the banks lending. The coalition, [...]
Investec Comment: How cheap oil is boosting small businesses April 12, 2015 THE extraordinary decline in the price of oil has been one of the most important economic stories of the past year. Brent Crude fell from over $110 per barrel in June 2014 to below $50 in January 2015, slumping to multi-year lows. Prices have increased marginally since then, but with factors like the interim deal [...]
Brexit: 61pc of small business owners agree with Tony Blair and would vote to stay in the EU April 7, 2015 Tony Blair delivered a strong attack on David Cameron's EU referendum promise this morning at his old Sedgefield constituency. The former Labour leader and three-time General Election winner warned voters that the possibility of Brexit would leave "unpredictability hanging over the British economy". Whether Blair's intervention will serve to sway voters in favour of the [...]
Small businesses need big help from the next UK government March 23, 2015 This week, the chancellor answered our members’ calls for a stricter crackdown against multinational companies that avoid tax in Britain. We welcomed George Osborne’s decision to use taxation as a way to influence more ethical business practices in the UK. The chancellor’s ‘Google tax’ crackdown is a positive step towards creating a fairer system where [...]