comment & policy
Steve champions long-term thinking and policies to unlock the potential of businesses in the UK.
PRIVATE AND FAMILY BUSINESSES
“We need to empower Breakthrough Britain by fostering long-term growth in the private sector”
Private businesses, many of which are family businesses, are the backbone of long-term growth and central to the UK’s economic success, generating jobs, wealth, innovation, and taxation.
Despite their vital contribution to the UK economy, private and family businesses are often overlooked by policymakers, who are mostly focused on start-ups and scale-ups.
The UK falls behind its international counterparts in growing and maintaining family businesses. We have the potential to become world leaders in this space if we can help first-generation family firms to successfully transition to the next generation and foster long-term growth.
To do so, the UK Government needs to do more to nurture long-term ownership of companies. If we fail to do this, we effectively discourage homegrown growth and encourage businesses to sell out.
We must find a way to not only start companies and assist them in the scale-up process but to embrace them when they are at the critical stage of growth, often around the £30m revenue stage. Mid-sized businesses are the sustainable big businesses of the future. We should encourage them to get to that breakthrough moment and scale, not to exit.
A pro-business policy environment should give every British business a shot at growing at scale.
Steve is Deputy Chair of Family Businesses UK (FBUK), the UK’s leading organisation advocating for family businesses, and will become Chair in April 2025. He also chairs the UK’s Private Business Commission, which brings together business leaders to examine key issues impacting UK private businesses including tax incentives, access to funding, functioning of capital markets and employee incentives.
Launched in Spring 2024, Steve chairs the UK’s Private Business Commission, established by The Entrepreneurs Network. The Commission aims to identify and recommend reforms to significantly improve the business environment in the UK, enabling companies to thrive and scale up domestically.
UNLOCKING REGIONAL GROWTH
“To unlock growth across Britain, we need to devolve power.”
“To unlock growth across Britain, we need to devolve power.”
Growth and human potential depend on skills, access to opportunity, reliable public services and a path to progress.
For a country with a rich democratic history, Britain has become too centralised around Whitehall, causing underperformance across the country.
Pushing political power away from London is the first step to unlocking growth across Britain.
Devolving power to metro mayors proved that locals know better. In West Midlands, where my company is a powerful business, Andy Street has made a great difference and I know Richard Parker is working hard to do the same.
Giving local officials more power tailor policies and resources to specific regional needs will make them more effective and create a more balanced, cohesive economy throughout the UK.
In addition to devolution, youth employment is central to reducing regional inequalities.
Both the private and public sector need to do more to create training and employment opportunities for young people in in regions outside of London, to foster sustained local growth and economic diversification.
One to win
Steve Rigby is an investor and judge of the ground breaking One to Win competition, a £1 million prize fund aimed at accelerating tech innovation in the West Midlands. This investment—pledged by Rigby Group, SCC, Haatch, and Midven—supports the region’s most promising tech startups.
This year’s winner was Inicio AI, which developed Budgie AI, a virtual agent that provides consumers with financial support removing the fear, embarrassment or the wait associated with speaking to a human. It was picked as the region’s most promising start-up business amongst 140 applications. By providing substantial financial backing, the competition aims to strengthen the local tech ecosystem, empower entrepreneurs, and drive regional economic growth.
Find out more about Steve’s philanthropic efforts to boost youth employment in the West Midlands here.
PRIVATE BUSINESS COMMISSION
Steve chairs the UK’s Private Business Commission. Launched in Spring 2024, the Commission aims to identify and recommend reforms to significantly improve the business environment in the UK so that businesses can thrive and scale up domestically. The Commission’s ‘Backing Breakthrough Business’ report was launched in June 2024, examining the environment for private businesses in the UK and identifying ten key policy recommendations for the incoming UK government.