Business leaders back Family Business UK Manifesto Apprenticeship Reform Proposal

• The Manifesto launch comes after a survey of FBUK revealed that 60 per cent of family firms said not having access to the right skills was one of the major barriers they currently face and want to replace the Apprenticeship Levy with a Future Skills Fund.

• Family businesses say the Full Expensing regime had provided investment support and urged the Chancellor to make the scheme permanent in the upcoming Autumn Statement. 

The bosses of some of the UK’s largest family businesses are backing the launch of the first-ever Manifesto by Family Business UK, which calls for the Government to replace the Apprenticeship Levy with a Future Skills Fund

Taking The Long-Term View which lists “policies to unleash the potential of UK family business sector”, has received support from business leaders including those from Rigby Group, Samworth Brothers, Wates Group and ARCO.

A number of the largest family businesses across the UK are members of Family Business UK, including Warburtons, The Reed Group, Timpson’s, Schroders PLC, Gordon MacPhail,  Johnston’s of Elgin, and Betty’s.

The Manifesto launch comes after a survey of FBUK revealed that 60 per cent of family firms said not having access to the right skills was one of the major barriers they currently face and want to replace the Apprenticeship Levy with a Future Skills Fund.

The survey, conducted with the Family Business UK membership – made up of some of the largest family businesses, including household names and global companies – found that a significant majority of members felt that the Government has been too focused on addressing short-term issues and wasn’t doing enough to provide stability for family businesses by delivering a long-term strategy.

Overall, a majority of family businesses were looking to increase their investments over the next five years. Over half said initiatives such as the Full Expensing regime had provided some investment support and urged the Government to make the scheme permanent in the upcoming Autumn Statement. 

These insights have helped inform the new recommendations of the first-ever Manifesto by Family Business UK. Published today, the document sets out a list of key policy recommendations that can provide “enormous potential of the family business sector to support economic growth, family businesses, their workforce, and society at large”.

Chief Executive of Family Business UK, Neil Davy, said the Government has a clear opportunity to unlock the potential of the family business sector and that focusing on the following policy areas will help stimulate and sustain economic growth and prosperity and build healthy communities.

People: Policymakers and business must come together to help family firms to get the best out of their people through investing in skills and opportunities for local communities by:

• Replacing the Apprenticeship Levy with a Future Skills Fund

• Allowing more flexibility on how businesses use the fund for skills

• Removing barriers on spending between home nations

• Encouraging upskilling and career long learning

Growth: Family firms – backed by a clear government agenda – can help to deliver growth, enabling them to invest for the long term to create sustainable businesses and jobs by:

• Developing a Long-term Industrial Strategy, and to publish a Business Tax Roadmap

• Making the new Full Expensing rules for capital investment permanent.

• Reviewing the disparity in the tax treatment of debt and equity financing

• Developing a stand-alone growth and support strategy for mid-sized businesses,

• Raising the eligibility threshold for EIS to 499 employees (the same level as for knowledge-intensive companies) and increase the investment limit.

Ownership and succession: Promoting family ownership and ensuring a smooth transition from one generation to the next also building new companies for the future by:

• Committing to maintain Business Property Relief (BPR) in full

• Updating the rules for BPR to support businesses with joint ventures

• Bringing Business Assets Holdover Relief (BAHR) eligibility into alignment with BPR to enable a smooth transition in ownership between generations

Family Business UK believes that for too long, political, industry and business decision-making has taken a restricted approach to investment decisions that responds to the priorities of non-family business PLCs, whose priority is to meet shareholder demands for short-term returns on investments.

The UK needs to formulate a growth strategy that encourages and incentivises businesses to focus on longer-term investment opportunities and returns for stakeholders, the environment, and the UK’s role and place in the wider world.

Chief Executive of Family Business UK, Neil Davy, said:

“In the UK, we are sitting on an enormous resource of entrepreneurialism in the form of our family business sector. Family businesses make up 90 per cent of the UK’s total private sector firms, employing 14 million people and contributing over £200 billion through tax receipts each year alone.

“This manifesto represents our offer to policymakers, informed by the UK’s family business community and their everyday experience of doing business in helping to solve the big challenges of today and tomorrow.

“If implemented, they will unleash the enormous potential of the family business sector to support economic growth through responsible business practices that benefit the family business, their workforce, and society at large.”

Sir James Wates CBE, Chair of Family Business UK:

“Family businesses are the backbone of the UK’s entrepreneurial landscape, weaving together tradition and innovation. Their unwavering commitment to quality, sustainability, and community sets them apart. I wholeheartedly endorse the manifesto for family businesses in the UK, recognizing their vital role in driving economic growth and nurturing the local fabric of our society.”