Mark Florman: Employee-shareholder policy could restore our winning entrepreneurial zeal again.

By Mark Florman

The UK has some of the best entrepreneurs and brightest business minds in the world. But to put the dynamism back into our economy we need to make it as easy as possible to start and grow a business: which is why I am a supporter of the Government’s new Employee-Shareholder policy.

Anyone who has ever started their own company knows it’s a risky business. Budding new enterprises can be tied up in red tape, struggling through the complexity of UK employment law without an HR team, and often wary of the risks they’re taking on.

These costs add up to one thing – a huge barrier to hiring people. One of this Government’s most radical policies is to do something about it.

Last October, the Chancellor announced the creation of a new employment status – the employee-shareholder. For the first time, employees will be allowed to give up some of their gold-plated employment rights in exchange for shares in their company. And, if the company succeeds and the shares increase in value, the Government will waive Capital Gains Tax to reward their aspiration.

Mark Florman: When 1.4 billion human beings live on less than $1.50 a day we can afford to donate 0.7% of our own wealth

Mark Florman is Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice. He writes as founder of Build A School and 8 Miles.

Foreign Aid is getting a bad press. The latest assault is contained in Jonathan Foreman’s book Aiding and Abetting published by think-tank Civitas, which follows a slew of media criticism of David Cameron’s decision to raise UK spending to 0.7 per cent of GDP this year.

Yet there is only one aid mystery – why our support for efforts to tackle global poverty is so misunderstood.

We have all heard the well-worn criticisms of aid. That it is at best ineffective, and at worst pernicious, flowing to “kleptocratic third-world rulers”. That aid is a “middle and upper-class enthusiasm”, and that aid workers themselves are workshy rich-kids. That aid is simply a political tool which politicians use to prove their credentials as caring international statesmen at taxpayer expense.

The notion that aid is a bourgeois concern is demonstrably untrue. In a ComRes poll in September a majority of those in the ‘DE’ socio-economic group thought Aid spending was either about right or too low. Crucial C1 voters were less likely to think aid was too high than those in the AB social group. This reflects a general respect for philanthropy throughout the British population. As the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy has shown, among households which give to charity lower income households give more as a proportion of their income than those on large budgets, with those in the bottom decile donating approximately 3% of their budget compared with those in the top decile donating roughly 1%.

Mark Florman: Tackling poverty benefits the nation as well as the poor

Mark Florman is Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice.

Britain has reached a crossroad ­ and we must seize this moment to take the bold decisions for our future direction.

Dynamic new economies are springing up across the world and transforming the global landscape. Countries such as China, India, Mexico and Brazil have been growing at a rapid rate. In 2011 the UK annual GDP growth was 0.7% which sits in stark comparison to China¹s slowed growth of 9.3%. This says nothing of Mongolia which saw an annual GDP growth of 17.3% and in Qatar GDP was up by 18.8%. These countries have a hunger to succeed and are defining the new world.

There is a new global economic climate, one that it is a markedly different to when I started work thirty years ago. This landscape is relentlessly fast paced; thousands of new ideas are born each second and innovative new businesses can spring into action overnight. And unless we make an effort to change gear and forge national renewal then a greying Britain risks getting left behind.

This is no pie in the sky ideal, it is perfectly plausible that Britain will become an international leader once again, but only if we help everybody to realise their potential. We need to strive for individual and national success. The Government must empower each person, their families and communities to play a vital role in recasting Britain as fit for the 21^st century.