Chancellor turns spotlight on enterprise

Gordon Brown has detailed a range of measures designed to encourage private sector enterprise.

The move comes ahead of Monday's pre-Budget report and coincides with an 'advancing enterprise' conference taking place in London.

"I want a Britain that is a leader in the world's fastest growing, most wealth-creating sectors at the cutting edge of global advance - in capital markets and financial services; in science and innovation; in creativity and enterprise; in skills and education," Brown told the event.

"More than ever, as we have discovered, in one of the most challenging years for the global economy, the foundation for growth is economic stability.

"We know that in a global economy investment flows to the stable economies and away from the volatile.

"So when I present my pre-Budget report on Monday, I will show how Britain has taken long-term decisions on monetary and fiscal policy and moved from being one of the stop-go economies of the world to one of the most stable."

Brown put the emphasis on scientific and medical research, and also emphasised the need to ensure appropriate skills are available to employers.

"To meet our next ambition, to become world leaders in science, we cannot rest upon our heritage of scientific invention and achievement: we must build upon it, at all times looking to convert our scientific genius into commercial success," he said.

"Just as the Victorians built great entrepreneurial cities, so too for a new age, business and government are developing science and technology cities where universities research institutes and high-tech companies come together to create clusters of creative activity."

The chancellor also backed the importance of creative industries, and said he would "take forward" the recommendations of a new report published by Sir George Cox.

"The concern of my review is the untapped potential of the large number of solidly-managed but low-growth UK businesses that could be transformed with a skilful injection of creativity," said Sir George on Friday.

"One of the challenges is to get business people, engineers, technologists and designers to understand one another better and to speak the same language.

"This applies to both experienced practitioners and those we are training for tomorrow. That's why both areas are tackled within the recommendations."

It was also announced that Andrew Gowers, former editor of the Financial Times, is to lead a review of intellectual property rights in the UK.

"I believe that intellectual property is at the heart of Britain's success in the knowledge economy," said Gowers.

"This review will ensure that we maintain a world-class environment for creativity, design and innovation."

Brown said that the foundation for future success would be ensuring stability.

"The priority to encourage enterprise is to invest in science research and the creative industries, maximise flexibility and open up trade," he added.

"At every point building the best educated, most highly skilled workforce in the world.

"Beyond this conference I want to continue to encourage business to define what is needed for Britain to become more competitive and more enterprising and I invite you to help us do this.

"And if we work together then I believe we shall prove that Britain is made for globalisation and globalisation is made for Britain."