The Queen set out in her speech on 4 June 2014 the government’s legislative priorities for the upcoming parliamentary session. The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill (‘the SPEEB’) was the first Bill to be announced. The SPEEB is due to be published on 16 June 2014. It is anticipated that it will have completed its passage through Parliament by March 2015. The SPEEB aims to make it easier for small businesses to grow. This demonstrates the government’s recognition of the essential role small and medium sized businesses play in improving our economy. The practices that the SPEEB will implement, in order to achieve this, include:

• facilitating small business’ access to finance and to public contracts;
• faster company registration;
• frequent reviews of regulations in order to cut unnecessary red tape affecting small businesses;
• the improvement of payment practices between small businesses and their customers;
• enforcing stronger rules on director disqualifications;
• removing unnecessary costs from insolvency procedures;
• making it easier for small businesses to expand overseas; and
• implementing more flexible childcare regulations to meet the needs of working families.

The National Insurance Contributions Bill will also be of significance as it intends to simplify the payment of national insurance contributions by the self-employed and contains a number of measures aimed at tackling tax avoidance. These reforms should be welcomed and will hopefully encourage more entrepreneurs to start their business sooner rather than later. If you would like any further information about this or business growth in general please contact Caroline Cropley or Rachel Brown of Druces LLP’s Entrepreneurs’ Team.