Enterprise Nation's 2025 Spending Review submission for small businesses

Read Enterprise Nation's submission to the government ahead of the 2025 Spending Review, which will be announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves on 11 June.

The submission centres around key policy priorities, closely aligned with the pressing concerns of our 130,000+ members.

The full submission is here and the recommendations are summarised below:

Access to markets

• To support exporters and empower UK small businesses for global success, the Department for Business and Trade should revamp and reinstate the UK Tradeshow Access Programme

• Ensure UK Export Finance (UKEF) is sufficiently resourced to meet its target of supporting 1,000 SMEs per year by 2029

• Match-fund an industry-led supplier readiness programme to help small businesses become 'fit to supply' for public procurement and make the most of the Procurement Act

• Champion free trade and British small businesses on the global stage

Access to technology

• Co-develop an AI powered support tool, based on Enterprise Nation's Tech Hub, available to all SMEs

• Reward businesses for adopting technology with new financial support modelled on Singapore's Go Digital and South Korea's Digital New Deal programmes

• Offer targeted tax incentives, and time-limited subsidies, to support businesses with the cost of adopting AI and technology

• Invest in new training programmes and support designed to introduce small business owners to emerging technology, and to ease their concerns where legal reasons are stopping them from using the tech effectively

• To help increase AI adoption, launch campaigns to promote the benefits of using AI for small business owners

• Prioritise the nationwide adoption of eInvoicing to boost the UK's digital economy

Access to finance

• Expand the Making Tax Digital scheme to include companies with a turnover of less than £20,000 per annum

Access to people

• Continue the delivery of existing mentoring business support programmes

• Build a talent engine for growth: co-fund a collaborative Talent Hub for small businesses

• Improve existing support programmes to help older workers transition from unemployment into self-employment

• Conduct a review on the feasibility of small business tax incentives to upskill their workforce

• Embed enterprise education across the curriculum

Access to space

• Commission a national programme to support small businesses in high street rental auctions

• Empower local authorities to have more responsibility over business rates reliefs and exemptions for small businesses, coworking spaces and charities

• Introduce a levy on commercial-to-residential transfers to discourage tax motivated shifts from commercial to residential property

Enterprise Nation will have full coverage of the 2025 Spending Review on 11 June.