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Rt Hon Lord Young of Graffham, former Trade Secretary and entrepreneurial businessman, provided the foreword to the Migrant Entrepreneurship Report explaining how migrant entrepreneurs provide a much needed boost into the economy and how they are leading by example.
Entrepreneurialism
Lord Young said: “I am the son of an immigrant. My father arrived in the Pool of London in 1905 as a five-year-old brought by his parents fleeing Lithuania. He went to school in the East End, within months fell in love with cricket (although in later life he deserted her for golf!) and when he left school at 15 worked in the family business. My grandfather, a small businessman with a lemonade factory at home, quickly set up his own entirely different business once he arrived over here.
“This is a story that has been repeated hundreds of thousands of times over the ensuing decades. Why? Because by and large it is the most entrepreneurial people who get up and go when living at home becomes impossible and they bring their entrepreneurialism with them. But entrepreneurialism by itself is not enough. If you want to start your own business you need a stable environment, sensible taxation and reasonable regulation within the rule of law, the three basic requirements for all business and those we provide better than anywhere else in Europe.
“The vast majority of those who arrive on our shores come here looking for the opportunity to better themselves, to enable their family to enjoy a decent life and many can do that best by setting up their own business. It is easier to start working for yourself in the UK than probably any other major country with the result that today we have a small-firms economy, whether they are high-tech, low-tech, or even no tech, and to the point that, today, over half the workforce are working for small firms. No longer is it necessary to have to accumulate much capital for over the last three years nearly 40,000 new businesses have started with a start-up loan (from the Start-Up Loan Company) where all the individual gets is a loan of about £5,000 and a mentor.
“If this report demonstrates a gap in the market, then it is probably the provision of English language training for those intending to work for themselves.
“I commend this report for demonstrating how much we should welcome those immigrants who come to our shores, how much we should assist them in their endeavours to work for themselves and, ultimately, how much their efforts will benefit the whole economy.”
English language
The author of the report Brazilian-born Rafael dos Santos said: “Lord Young is so right about the provision of English language training and people being able to work for themselves. I moved to the UK at a young age and experienced the difficultly of language barriers, little local knowledge, lack of funding and no network.
“The report highlights the importance of networking with fellow Brits and how language skills are a necessity for those who want to really succeed.”
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Susie Hughes © Shout99 2016
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