Open letter: From an 'Alliance of Entrepreneurs' to the Nation's Media

When City AM editor Allister Heath wrote for The Telegraph calling for a 'union of entrepreneurs', Enterprise Nation responded by organising a meeting of groups already representing small businesses in the UK. We worked together on an open letter to Heath and the nation's media, outlining this new alliance's agenda.

Here is our open letter, along with your opportunity to share your views on how we can better serve small businesses.

Standing up for small businesses

Dear Sir/Madam,

Today is the first day of Global Entrepreneurship Week - the world's largest campaign to promote entrepreneurship. To mark the occasion, we have come together to create the Entrepreneurs' Alliance: a pressure group to stand up for Britain's wealth creators.

Together we represent more than 2.5m small and micro businesses. We are pooling our power and understanding of the small business community to remove the obstacles constructed by an economy too focused on the demands of big business.

Entrepreneurs have proved to be the lifeblood of this recovery: the number of VAT-registered businesses is already back to pre-2008 levels, start-up rates are at an all-time high and bankruptcies at a six-year low. Big businesses can't yet boast such an impressive comeback.

To date, there has been no pressure from a single body to rival the lobbying power of big business. Whenever policy makers are gearing their efforts towards the richest and the loudest, we will combine to point out the unintended consequences to the wider economy.

Through this union of entrepreneurial expertise, we want to see an environment in which self-starters are free to challenge established business models, without being bound by the regulation and red tape that reinforces traditional monopolies.

Our first action will be to pressure Government to ensure the statistics around the number and contribution of small businesses is properly accounted for. At present, the data are divided and contradictory.

This is just the first of many interventions in the public policy debate - we welcome ideas from small business owners the length and breadth of Britain on other ways that we can work to make Britain more entrepreneurial.

Signed:

• Emma Jones, founder Enterprise Nation

• Clive Lewis, head of enterprise ICAEW

• Megan Downey, manager School for StartUps

• Alex Jackman, head of policy Forum of Private Business

• Dawn Whiteley, chief executive, National Enterprise Network

• Matt Smith, director, Centre for Entrepreneurs

• Dan Martin, editor, BusinessZone.co.uk and UKBusinessForums.co.uk

• Graeme Fisher, head of policy, Federation of Small Businesses

• Philip Salter, director, The Entrepreneurs Network