Ten years. Seven Prime Ministers. Multiple agendas. That’s too many, if you ask me. Running a business is already hard in itself, but having to navigate continuous policy change on top of it isn’t helping. Successive governments have made it difficult for founders to take risks, scale companies and even stay in the country. A 2025 survey showed that nearly half of fintech founders have considered relocating their business outside of the UK. If Britain wants to retain its position as a competitive tech ecosystem, that needs to change. 

“Ten years, seven Prime Ministers, multiple agendas”

New Prime Minister Andy Burnham has an opportunity to fix this by making Britain the best place to start and scale a business. Here are the areas he should focus on. 

Rewarding job creation 

Every politician talks about growth. Far fewer make it cheaper to create it. For Andy Burnham to deliver on the Government’s mission of bringing “good growth in every postcode,” he needs to make it genuinely worthwhile for businesses to hire. That means reducing the cost of employment through payroll tax credits and targeted National Insurance relief for scaling companies, so that expanding a team becomes an easier decision rather than a financial risk. 

France offers a useful model here: its tax credit on research expenditure lets startups that spend at least 15% of their total fiscal costs on R&D claim …