 Mr Brown wants to boost enterprise |
Chancellor Gordon Brown has unveiled plans to tackle European red tape which he says is stifling business. He has also pledged more cash for scientific research and new awards for entrepreneurs.
The chancellor was speaking at the start of an international enterprise conference in London, where guests include Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Mr Gates told delegates that the UK should innovate more and not rely on shipping jobs overseas and cost cuts.
Top-up fees
Gordon Brown pledged to make science a priority in the next public spending round in 2006 to 2008.
But in the clearest indication yet that there may be big cuts in other areas, he said the rate of growth of public spending would have to slow.
"We will entrench and not relax our fiscal discipline," Mr Brown said. He also urged Labour MPs to back the government in Tuesday's crunch parliamentary vote on university top-up fees.
"I want us to be the best educated, best trained workforce, and tomorrow's much-needed reform of university finance - which I urge all MPs and all Labour MPs to support - is another vital step towards that goal," he told delegates.
On red tape he said: "I can tell you that the Irish, Dutch, British and Luxembourg finance ministers are today (Monday) setting out our joint initiative to reduce the burden of existing regulation and to ensure that every new regulation is subject to strict and stringent tests for its impact on enterprise and the competitiveness of the European economy,". The joint paper says reducing red tape could boost EU gross domestic product by 7% and productivity by 3% in the longer term.
Gates urges innovation
The world's richest man, Bill Gates, founder of software giant Microsoft, urged UK companies to rely on innovation and research to develop new products, rather than cost-cutting and shipping jobs overseas to maintain products.
He warned the challenges of globalisation meant Western companies had to focus on developing new products.
"Making a global argument is very tough and in some ways we haven't laid the groundwork for it," he told delegates.
Microsoft has two global research centres outside the US, one in Cambridge, England, and the other in Beijing, China.
Mr Gates will be knighted by the Queen for his services to enterprise.
US views
US Treasury Secretary John Snow told the conference that the key to prosperity was boosting growth in the big economies of Europe, Japan and the United States.
He argued that as well as ensuring the right macro-economic conditions, it was important to ensure that there was labour flexibility and capital mobility within countries.
"As we address the barriers to growth in our own economies, we can never forget that we need to be outward looking... because we are all now part of this great global trading system," he said.
Mr Snow urged action on restarting the world trade talks which became stalled during recent negotiations at Cancun, Mexico.
He said that the US could grow by over 4% in 2004.
Alan Greenspan, the head of the US central bank, told delegates that the most important lesson from the recent past was the need for flexibility in labour and product markets to meet the inevitable shocks to the economic system.
'Waste of time'
The Conservatives have blamed Labour for choking British business with unnecessary paperwork.
Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin accused Gordon Brown of presiding over an ever more complex tax structure, which is damaging productivity and misleading taxpayers.
"If increased complexity is the necessary by-product of increased revenue, then that's OK with him," Mr Letwin said.
The Tories have also criticised Mr Brown's enterprise conference as a thinly-veiled attempt to re-build Labour's damaged relations with business and a "costly waste of time".
'Low value' jobs
In his speech, Mr Brown said more "low value" jobs will be "moved offshore" in the years ahead, to countries like China and India, and Britain's future lay in "high value added, high tech" products and services.
"The price of failure is not a long period of slow decline but sectors going under altogether," he warned.
Mr Brown also proposed:
- A Royal day of recognition for entrepreneurs on 14 July
- A joint US/UK forum on enterprise to be held in the summer
- An annual British city of enterprise award
- A new scheme for school students to learn from American entrepreneurs
- More help for graduate entrepreneurs
- A European City of Enterprise, along the lines of the longstanding City of Culture
- An annual enterprise week in November
Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, who is among a host of global business leaders speaking at the conference, said high taxes in Britain would hold back economic development.
He also accused the UK of being scared of success.
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