The UK if everything was nearly half as much bigger

A White Paper for BROTHER UK

CONTENTS

Executive summary and key findings    3

Introduction: transforming the UK  4

1 A quantum leap for screens, voice communications and literacy    6

2 By 2100, people may live to 1417

3 A 41 per cent rise in SME jobs would end unemployment     10

4 What 41 per cent more momentum would do for the UK economy     15

5 Conclusion   17

Note: this document represents the personal views of the author, not those of Brother UK.

 

Executive summary and key findings

A UK that’s 41 per cent more innovative will not be simple to construct, but will be a radically different kind of place.

Whether printed or on-screen, communications would be more impactful. With IT, talk would be clearer, speech recognition would be everywhere, and simultaneous translation of foreign languages would be commonplace. A 41 per cent improvement in literacy would ensure that everyone in the UK could read and write.

By the end of the 21^st century, some people in the UK may live to the age of 141. It’s probable that the majority of babies born since 2000 will eventually celebrate 100th birthdays. The implications: for small firms, the capital accumulated in a lifetime could grow by much more than 41 per cent, objectives would be wider, grandchildren would feature more prominently in family businesses, and women – the more durable of the sexes – would play a much more influential role.

The UK’s 4.8 million private sector SMEs would benefit from 41 per cent more bank lending. But if the UK’s SMEs expanded employment by 41 per cent, they’d mop up all this country’s 2.5 million unemployed, and bring many of its 9.35 million inactive people back into work. Indeed if small retailers, alone, innovated their way to taking on 41 per cent more staff, the UK would gain half a million jobs; and if SMEs added 41 per cent more turnover, they’d bring £40 billion into the economy.

A 41 per cent increase in SME R&D, though tough, is the very least we should look forward to. However, a 41 per cent increase in women starting businesses should be more than possible – in Brazil, more women start businesses than men. Of the three devolved administrations in the UK, a 41 per cent increase in the number of SMEs per head of population is most urgently needed in Scotland. However, in terms of attitudes to entrepreneurship, a 41 per cent increase in the popular rate at which people expect to start a new business would bring the UK above the rates that exist in North America, Western Europe and Japan.

A 41 per cent rise in the two per cent UK annual growth forecast by some today would not make it equal to that likely to be hit by Africa, this year and next. Still, a 41 per cent improvement in the UK’s productivity would make it overtake that of the US, France and Germany.

Investment in infrastructure urgently needs an increase. A 41 per cent rise in the rate of house building would still not return output to respectable levels. In electricity, the rate of investment of the past 10 years needs to double. In broadband, universal 2Mbps service isn’t enough: speeds should be 100Mbps or greater.

In the 20^th century, some of the world’s great innovators suffered major setbacks in their quest for success. Nevertheless, they persevered and eventually won through.

The UK now needs to believe that a 41 per cent better world isn’t just desirable, but achievable.

Introduction: transforming the UK

Brother UK commissioned this White Paper because the company has launched a new kind of printer – one that handles A3 paper (297 × 420mm) rather than the more familiar A4 (210 × 297mm).

Our aim here is to prompt debate about what a larger-than-life world might look like, and how such a world might work. Here, physical size matters, certainly; but of even greater importance is 41 per cent more ambition, confidence and innovation – especially innovation among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs, or firms with fewer than 250 employees) which form Brother UK’s main market, and among the small and medium retailers which sell Brother equipment.

Innovation is much invoked nowadays, but the genuine article often proves hard to find. [1] Even in ‘social’ innovations, rather than the technological sort, the Economist is compelled to observe that successful experiments mixing public services, charity and private entrepreneurs ‘have spread only slowly, if at all’. [2] Still, from printers through sewing machines and machine tools to online karaoke systems, Brother, a multinational manufacturing company with 27,000 employees, a turnover of more than £3 billion and headquarters in Nagoya, Japan, has long had a distinguished record of innovation. [3] It’s in the spirit of innovation that this paper is published.

It suggests not those 41 per cent improvements that will prove simple to execute, but those that will really help transform the UK. As John F Kennedy famously said when launching America’s programme to go to the Moon within 10 years,

‘We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.’[4]

In the pages that follow, we have selected four major themes for analysis from the many that suggest themselves. First, taking off from larger print sizes, we look at how different kinds of communications could change: direct mail, poster advertising, cinema, TV, IT and the basic business of reading and writing.

Second, we address a development that’s pretty much bound to happen in the UK in future years: people living longer.

Third, for the reasons outlined above, we pay special attention to what could happen among SMEs in general, and retail SMEs in particular.

Last, we survey how the UK economy would benefit from 41 per cent more impetus.

Enjoy!

1 A quantum leap for screens, voice communications and literacy

All kinds of printed formats in this country are already getting bigger. Direct mail communications, even from SMEs that are just take-away restaurants, are larger and more colourful than the old handbills ever were. We can be certain that outdoor advertising, too, will get bigger in future. What might the big posters of the future look like? Instead of being 3m high x 12m long(96 sheets, 37 square meters) they could be chunkier: 4m high x 12m long (136 sheets,52 square meters).

A 41 per cent bigger world, however, wouldn’t just mean larger paper sizes. 3D movies would become even more immersive than they are now. IMAX screens, which are mostly 16x22m, would move up toward the size of the world’s largest cinema screen, the LG IMAX in Sydney, Australia, which is 29x36m. TV screens – including the 3D sort – would also become more absorbing: John Lewis, for example, would offer 72-inch TVs, rather than the 60-inch machines it sells now.

As more people do some or all of their work from home, 41 per cent larger screens, whether in the shape of TVs or computers, will make for higher productivity there. Yet a 41 per cent improvement in the power of voice communications would also do much to improve the efficiency of work. With mobile phones finally poised to move toward High Definition voice calls, expect clearer business conversations, fewer needless repetitions, and fewer misunderstandings. Expect, too, a faster manipulation of IT, as mobile phones with Google Android operating system vie with Apple’s iPhones in the realm of speech recognition systems.

Maybe the decline of French and German in Britain’s schools will also find a remedy, of sorts, in a 41 per cent improvement in Britons’ understanding of foreign tongues. Google hopes, within two years, to create software that will give near-simultaneous translation of many of the world’s 6000 languages. [5]

In IT, 41 per cent jumps in performance are possible, and could really enliven Britain’s economic prospects. Just as the Internet has made exports easier for SMEs in services, UK SMEs might enjoy a 41 surge of business once automatic translation into French, German, Mandarin and Hindi becomes possible.

Outside the visual and aural, however, Britain needs a 41 per cent improvement in literacy. In 2003, the latest year for which statistics are available, a shocking 5.2 million adults in England lacked the kind of literacy that represents competence for everyday living. Since then there have been improvements. [6] Still, a 41 per cent rise in UK literacy would end a lot of incomprehension. That would be good not just for everyone’s self-confidence, but especially for firms out to hire new staff.

Altogether, 41 per cent bigger screens, 41 per cent more powerful voice communications and the end of illiteracy would amount to a quantum leap for the UK.

2 By 2100, people may live to 141

By the end of the 21^st century, some people in the UK may live to the age of 141. Denmark’s Ageing Research Centre already maintains that if life expectancy in developed countries goes on rising the way it has done over the past 200 years, the majority of babies born since 2000 in G7 countries – France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada and Japan – will eventually celebrate 100th birthdays.[7]

Certainly, despite all the disquiet voiced about pollution, obesity and food quality in Britain, life expectancies there continue to rise – with those among men gradually gaining on those among women:

 Life expectancy at birth, UK, 1980-82 to 2006-08 [8]

Would living to 141 be no fun? Not necessarily. Brits aged 65 can already expect to live in good or fairly good health for longer than ever before. In just the first six years of the noughties, the improvement in what is called healthy life expectancy for 65-year-olds – particularly among men – has been dramatic: [9]

UK healthy life expectancy at age 65, by year and sex

 

Males	2000-2002	15.9
	2001-2003	16.1
	2002-2004	16.4
	2003-2005	16.6
	2004-2006	16.9
	2005-2007	17.2
Females	2000-2002	19.0
	2001-2003	19.1
	2002-2004	19.3
	2003-2005	19.4
	2004-2006	19.7
	2005-2007	19.9

 

Men aged 65 are on the point of hoping that they will live healthily to the age of 83; women aged 65 can reasonably hope to live that way to the age of 85. True, the age at which people can expect to receive a state pension is likely to leap upward in years to come. [10] But the opportunity to lead an active life past the age of 80 has never been greater.

Developments in medicine may extend life spans up to and perhaps even beyond 141 years. As news about specially-grown windpipes confirms, stem cells already allow organs to be transplanted much more easily than in the past. And there’s more:

• Leeds university researchers hope to create a scaffold of many different body parts on to which patient stem cells can be placed, as and when needed [11]

• Over time, researchers at Sheffield university and New South Wales university, Australia, hope to develop stem cells as cures for some kinds of deafness and blindness [12]

• At Yale university, US, researchers hope that the artificial production of fully functional human lungs will one day be possible. [13]

New medical studies with female mice also contain promise. Among those little creatures, ovarian transplants have increase life spans by more than 40 per cent. That raises the possibility of similar increases in women. [14]

Of course, 41 per cent longer lives won’t necessarily be problem-free. New generation gaps will no doubt open up, and both the meaning of marriage and the realities of sex will also change. But as they say in Hollywood, what’s new in show business? Fears around that old cliché, the demographic time bomb, are overdone: society has smoothly negotiated equally difficult demographic transitions in the past. [15] For SMEs, a vista of endlessly ageing owner-managers need not be one of doom. For every superannuated Albert Steptoe there will be a high-rolling, forever-young Joan Collins.

For many SMEs work would continue for longer than in the past. However, the capital that SME owners accumulate would no doubt grow by more than 41 per cent, objectives would be wider, and grandchildren would feature more prominently in family businesses. And, even without their life spans moving up to 141, women – the more durable of the sexes – will play a much more influential role in SMEs.

3 A 41 per cent rise in SME jobs would end unemployment

Today British banks say they’d like to lend SMEs more money, but there isn’t the demand for it. However Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, and Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, don’t agree: King has described banks’ computer-generated refusals to lend to SMEs as ‘heartbreaking’. [16] What would a 41 per cent improvement in the operating conditions that surround UK SMEs do for them?

No doubt the UK’s 4.8 million private sector SMEs, its 82,000 small and medium non-profit organisations, and even its 4000 small and medium units in central and local government could all benefit from 41 per cent more, and 41 per cent more generous, bank lending. [17] But the bigger issues lie not in finance, but in the real economy, and in culture. There’s at least 41 per cent more room for SMEs to expand in employment, turnover, and research and development (R&D). And there’s just as much room, too, for more businesswomen, more Scots businesses, and more hopeful attitudes toward entrepreneurship.

Jobs: If the UK’s SMEs expanded employment by 41 per cent, their headcount would rise from 14.6 million to 20.6 million jobs. That would mop up all the 2.5 million unemployed in the UK, and make a significant dent on the UK’s 9.35 million inactive people aged 16 to 64. [18] In other words, a 41 per cent increase in SMEs jobs would raise the rate of adult employment in the UK from 70.5 per cent (29 million employed) to 75.8 per cent (35 million out of nearly 41 million).

If just the UK’s small retailers innovated their way to taking on 41 per cent more staff, the results would be dramatic. The UK would gain getting on for half a million new jobs:

Size distribution and employment among SMEs in UK retailing (except of motor vehicles) and repair of personal and household goods, beginning of 2008 and with a 41 per cent increase in jobs [19]

Number of employees	Number of enterprises	Number of jobs	Number of jobs with a 41 per cent increase
0	192,615	236,000	333,000
1	27,130	64,000	90,000
2-4	65,645	221,000	312,000
5-9	25,975	182,000	257,000
10-19	8,975	122,000	172,000
20-49	3,140	96,000	135,000
50-99	790	54,000	76,000
100-199	360	51,000	72,000
200-249	85	18,000	254,000
TOTAL		1,044,000	1,472,000

Turnover: across all sectors, SMEs organise £1.54 trillion of the UK’s £3.22 trillion turnover. Were they to add 41 per cent more business, they would bring the UK’s total turnover to £3.85 trillion – a 20 per cent increase.

As with employment, the effect of retail SMEs adding 41 per cent more turnover would bring getting on for £40 billion into the economy:

Size distribution and turnover among SMEs in UK retailing (except of motor vehicles) and repair of personal and household goods, beginning of 2008 and with a 41 per cent increase in turnover [20]

 

Number of employees	Number of enterprises	Approximate turnover, £ billion, 2008	Approximate turnover, £ billion, with a 41 per cent increase
0	192,615	15.0	21.2
1	27,130	5.6	7.9
2-4	65,645	21.7	30.6
5-9	25,975	17.0	24.0
10-19	8,975	11.3	11,344
20-49	3,140	9.4	15.9
50-99	790	5.7	8.0
100-199	360	4.8	6.8
200-249	85	1.7	2.4
TOTAL		92.2	130.0

 

R&D: on a number of indicators of R&D, the UK lies somewhat below the averages recorded by countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and below, too, the averages for the 27 countries in the EU. [21] Worse, though, the R&D done by UK SMEs looks way too small – certainly in comparison to their numbers.

Even before the Credit Crunch, the R&D performed by SMEswas very modest: in 2005, it amounted to a total of £448m, compared with a total corporate R&D spend of £13.41 billion. [22] In some ways, this figure isn’t too surprising:

• SMEs are often too strapped for cash to research and develop new ideas for the future
• most SMEs are very small, and most are also in services, where R&D is weak the world over.

Still, though a 41 per cent increase in SME R&D would be quite a feat, it’s the very least we should look forward to.

Women: in the UK in 2009, just 3.7 per cent of women found themselves in the first 42 months of setting up a business, compared with 7.8 per cent of men. So if 41 per cent more women started businesses in the UK than the numbers that do at present, British women would reach the more equitable female to male ratios of early-stage entrepreneurship that exist in the US, where 60 per cent as many women as men are at an early stage in their new businesses. Indeed, that kind of increase in female participation ought to be more than possible: in Brazil, for example, more women have set out to create new businesses than men. [23]

Scotland: a 41 per cent increase in the number of SMEs per head of population is urgently needed in Scotland. Of the three devolved administrations in the UK, Scotland is by far the weakest in terms of the penetration of SMEs:

Number of SMEs per 10,000 residents aged 16+, at the beginning of 2008 [24]

 

England                    996

Northern Ireland          917

Wales                    830

Scotland                   761

 

Attitudes: culturally, Britons’ desire to start a new business needs ratcheting up by more than 41 per cent. Among adults of a working age, a 41 per cent increase in the rate of enthusiasm for starting a local business would only bring the UK back to the levels it enjoyed before the Crunch. Still, a similar increase in the popular rate at which people expect to start a new business would bring the UK above G7 levels. [25]

Britain’s new entrepreneurs are none too sanguine about their chances of creating new jobs. In the G7 nations, 27 per cent of early-stage entrepreneurs who have created 10 or jobs expect to add at least another 50 per cent more in the next five years. By contrast, the figure in the UK is just 18 per cent. Still, optimism about entrepreneurship is out there: more early-stage entrepreneurs in the UK report that they are engaged with new products and new markets than in all other G7 countries except Japan. Also, UK early-stage entrepreneurs and established business owners report that they are in high or medium tech sectors at almost twice the rates reported by their G7 counterparts. Such people are also ahead of the G7 pack in terms of having, or expecting to have, more than one in four of their customers hailing from outside the country. [26]

There is more good news. In 2009, the fear of failure surrounding the formation of a business – among those agreeing that there are good opportunities to form one – was down on 2008 levels: 35.2 per cent feared failure, compared with 38.3 the year before. [27]

Clearly, the British could still do with being 41 per cent more hopeful about starting new businesses. Such a change in positive perceptions would be a stretch – but, over time, it isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility.

4 What 41 per cent more momentum would do for the UK economy

UK economic growth today appears volatile. Whatever its precise course, though, it cannot compare with the 7-10 per cent annual increases in GDP recorded by China and India in recent years. Indeed, a 41 per cent rise in the two per cent UK annual growth forecast by some today would not make it equal to that likely to be hit by Africa, this year and next. [28]

Still, compared with the rest of the G7, the productivity of the UK economy has since 1991 been improving at quite a clip. By 2008, UK GDP per worker had grown by 39 per cent, while that of its six developed-country rivals had improved by only 29 per cent. In terms of GDP per hour worked, the UK increase was 48 per cent, against 36 per cent for its competitors. [29]

Progress has been fast enough, then, for a 41 per cent improvement in the UK’s productivity to be enough to make it catch up and overtake the productivity of France, Germany and the US:

Productivity in terms of GDP per worker and GDP per hour, G7 countries, 2008 [30]

	Canada	France	Germany	Italy	Japan	UK	US
GDP per worker	102	109	102	108	92	100	133
GDP per hour	97	116	117	99	85	100	122

 

How could such a feat be accomplished? In terms of sectors of employment, retailing would be a good place to start: when lumped with wholesaling and repairs, it represents 21 per cent of all UK private sector employment, or nearly five million employees. [31] Everyone would benefit from a 41 per cent improvement in customer service, or a 41 per cent increase in the speed of queues in supermarkets and retail banks. Right now, 51 per cent of UK shoppers refuse even to enter a shop if they spot a queue. [32]

Retail banks, tourism, health, leisure and government could also do with a 41 per cent boost to their productivity, especially as it is harder to raise in these labour-intensive sectors than it is in industry, where automation is relatively easy to introduce. But turning from growth and productivity to investment, it’s infrastructure that most urgently needs a 41 per cent increase in momentum:

• in construction, a sector which is heavily weighted toward SMEs, new UK homes registered between April and June 2010 were, coincidentally, 41 per cent up on new registrations over the same period in 2009: more than 30,000 were recorded. [33]However, a 41 per cent increase in the rate of house building in the UK would still not return output to respectable levels. Though 2009 was a better year for house building than 2008, the latter saw just 107,000 new starts – 18 per cent fewer than the previous lowest year, which was back in 1992 [34]

• in electricity generation, Ofgem, the gas and electricity regulator, believes that up to £200 billion of electricity investment will be needed by 2020 – not a 41 per cent increase in, but rather more than double the rate of investment of the past 10 years [35]

• in road-building, progress has ground to a halt. Between 2006 and 2008, for example, Great Britain added just 58km of roads, of all types, to the nearly 400,000km of roads it maintained [36]

• in broadband communications, 99 per cent of businesses believe that the Government’s commitment to universal 2Mbps broadband is not fast enough. Nearly three-quarters believe the target should be 100Mbps or greater. [37]

What about high-speed rail? Depending on the precise route adopted, journeys from Birmingham to London or Paris would be more than 41 per cent faster than they are at present (from 1 hour 24 minutes down to about 45 minutes, and from about 4.5 hours down to less than three). Plans for high-speed track, however, are rather belated: Europe already has 3480 miles of such track in operation, more than 2000 miles under construction and more than 5000 more planned. Britain, by contrast, runs just 68 miles of high-speed lines – between London St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel. [38]

There is no need to be despondent about the state of British infrastructure. But it is certainly worth setting our sights 41 per cent higher, if not more. In air travel, it’s worth recalling, the 20 Concorde jets, each costing a fairly modest £23m in 1977, cruised for 27 years at speeds of more than 1350mph before a single crash, unrelated to the supersonic nature of the plane, conspired with other factors to end this form of civilian transport. It’s not fanciful, then, to suggest that airliner speeds very much higher than the 500mph could well be revived in the 21^st century.

Of course, plans for 41 per cent better transport must take into account the effect of cars and planes on the planet’s climate. Yet even here all is by no means lost. In cars, a Chinese manufacturer named Build Your Dreams makes an all-electric sedan, the e6, which, when charged for just 10 minutes, can run for 125km. And in planes, though it was first thought that biofuels would only be certified as safe for flight in 2013, they are now set to gain certification early next year – ahead of schedule.

In infrastructure, in many ways the key to UK economic success for some years to come, there’s a need for more than 41 per cent improvement. The tasks are great – but they can be fulfilled.

5 Conclusion

Before the Wright brothers’ historic flight of December 1903, and before Blériot’s crossing of the Channel on 25 July 1909, people could hardly have even entertained the idea of a wide-bodied aircraft carrying up to 850 passengers – the all-economy-class capacity of the Airbus 380 today. For a long time after 27 September 1905, when Albert Einstein revolutionised modern physics with a 690-word paper containing the equation E=mc², nobody ever thought that matter could be directly converted into limitless energy, in the way that nuclear power plants today do. And before 2 October 1925, when, over 30 lines and at five images a second, John Logie Baird transmitted the first grey-scale television picture, people could hardly have even entertained the idea of what we now know as Facebook, or FaceTime, Apple’s system of mobile video chat.

In the 20^th century, some of the world’s great innovators suffered major setbacks in their quest for success. Nevertheless, they persevered and eventually won through. Orville Wright broke a leg and four ribs in his experiments; Louis Blériot flew the Channel with a badly burned foot; Einstein was lucky to avoid assassination at the hands of the Nazis; by accident, Baird burnt his hand by giving himself a 1000-volt shock. Yet against all this adversity, intellectual and engineering innovation triumphed.

These things are worth bearing in mind before cynics rush in to say that a 41 per cent better world is out of the question.

The population of the world, which reached two billion in 1927, is set to hit seven billion late next year – yet the planet has survived this increase. With a further 41 per cent rise, the figure would reach nearly 10 billion. Who is to rule out mankind surviving that total, as well?

The planet’s resources are finite, but they can be recycled. Even with the help just of the sun, the energy with which to recycle these resources is infinite. Above all, the human capacity to do 41 per cent better than the last time remains undimmed.

Yes, a 41 per cent better world is still within our grasp. The UK now needs to believe that a 41 per cent better world isn’t just desirable, but achievable.

[1] See Big Potatoes: the London Manifesto for Innovation, January 2010, on www.BigPotatoes.org

[2] ‘Let’s hear those ideas’, The Economist, 12 August 2010, on www.economist.com/node/16789766

[3] See Brother, ‘History’, on www.brother.com/en/corporate/history/index.htm, and ‘Brother Group Corporate Profile 2010’, http://pub.brother.com/pub/com/en/corp/pdf/profile/2010/broa4_all_en.pdf

[4] John F Kennedy Moon Speech – Rice Stadium, 12 September 1962, on http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

[5] Chris Gourlay, ‘Google leaps language barrier with translator phone’, The Sunday Times, 7 February 2010, on http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article7017831.ece, and Reuters MediaFile, ‘War of Words: Google’s Android sharpens speech-recognition in duel with Apple’s iPhone’, 12 August 2010, on http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2010/08/12/war-of-words-google’s-android-sharpens-speech-recognition-in-duel-with-apples-iphone/

[6] House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Skills for Life: Progress in Improving Adult Literacy and Numeracy: Third Report of Session 2008–09 Report, House of Commons, 14 January 2009, on www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmpubacc/154/154.pdf

[7] Professor Kaare Christensen and others, ‘Ageing populations: the challenges ahead’, The Lancet, Volume 374, Issue 9696, 3 October 2009, available for $31.50 on www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61460-4/fulltext#article_upsell

[8] Office for National Statistics (ONS), ‘Life expectancy continues to rise’, 21 October 2009, on www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=168

[9] ONS, ‘Health expectancies at birth and at age 65 in the United Kingdom 2000-02 to 2005-07’, 2010, on www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/Health-Expectancies-2000-2007_submitted.xls

[10] For the current position, and for updates on government proposals to raise the state pension age, see The Pensions Advisory Service, ‘State Pension Age Calculator’, on www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/state-pensions/state-pension-age-calculator?

[11] UK National Stem Cell Network Annual Science Meeting, ‘A new generation of biological scaffolds’, press release, 14 July 2010, on www.uknscn.org/pressreleases/2010/100714-new-generation-biological-scaffolds.html

[12] Dr Marcelo N Rivolta, ‘Human Fetal Auditory Stem Cells Can Be Expanded In Vitro and Differentiate Into Functional Auditory Neurons and Hair Cell-Like Cells’, 
Stem Cells, Vol 27, Issue 5, May 2009, on http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/stem.62/pdf; Nick Di Girolamo and others, ‘A Contact Lens-Based Technique for Expansion and Transplantation of Autologous Epithelial Progenitors for Ocular Surface Reconstruction’, Transplantation, Vol 87, Issue 10, 27 May 2009, available for $20 on http://journals.lww.com/transplantjournal/Abstract/2009/05270/A_Contact_Lens_Based_Technique_for_Expansion_and.21.aspx

[13] ‘Scientists Implant Regenerated Lung Tissue in Rats’, ScienceDaily, 24 June 2010, on www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624144054.htm

[14] Dr Noriko Kagawa, Associate Director for Research at the Kato Ladies’ Clinic in Tokyo (Japan), quoted in European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, ‘Ovarian transplantation restores fertility to old mice and also lengthens their lives’, press release, 29 June 2010, on www.eshre.eu/ESHRE/English/Press-Room/Press-Releases/2010-Press-releases/Welcome/Press-releases-Rome/O-168/page.aspx/1067

[15] See Phil Mullan, The imaginary time bomb: why an ageing population is not a social problem, I B Tauris, 1999.

[16] Laura Miller, ‘King attacks banks’ “heart-breaking” treatment of SMEs’, ifaonline, 29 July 2010, on www.ifaonline.co.uk/ifaonline/news/1725382/king-attacks-banks-heart-bre’aking-treatment-smes.

[17] Totals from Department for Business Innovation & Skills, SME statistics for the UK and regions 2008, 14 October 2009, on http://stats.bis.gov.uk/ed/sme/smestats2008.xls. In 2009, there was a two-fold increase in the number of nascent entrepreneurs who tried but failed to secure funding from friends and family, other individuals, and unsecured bank loans and overdrafts. See Jonathan Levie and Mark Hart, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: United Kingdom 2009 Monitoring Report, University of Strathclyde and Aston University Business Schools, 14 July 2010, on www.gemconsortium.org/download.asp?fid=1050. This survey used a sample of 30,000 16-80 year olds.

[18] Figures are for April to June 2010: see ONS, Labour market statistics, 18 August 2010, p2, on www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0810.pdf

[19] Department for Business Innovation & Skills, SME statistics for the UK and regions 2008, op cit, Table 6, Division 52.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), ‘Sample table and charts’, Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI): 2010/1 edition, p19, on www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/44/41850733.pdf. UK gross spending on R&D as a percentage of GDP, UK civilian R&D as a percentage of GDP and the number of families of patents developed in the UK per thousand inhabitants are all somewhat below OECD averages recorded by countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – and below, too, the averages for the 27 countries in the EU. Figures, respectively, are for 2008 or the latest for which data are available, 2010 or the latest for which data are available, and 2008. The UK is ahead of the OECD and EU-27 averages in total researchers per thousand total employment (2008 or the latest for which data are available).

[22] Department for Business Innovation & Skills, Research and Development in UK Businesses, 2005 (Business Monitor, MA14), Table 26, ‘Expenditure on R&D performed in UK businesses: by small and medium size enterprises, 1999 to 2005’, January 2007, p37, on www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_commerce/MA14_2005.pdf. The figures quoted above are for SMEs that are not units of larger firms. As the source document properly notes, ‘R&D activity is often carried out by smaller businesses which form part of larger, sometimes multinational businesses’, p6.

[23] Figures from Levie and Mark Hart, op cit, p16.

[24] Department for Business Innovation & Skills, SME statistics for the UK and regions 2008, op cit, Table 8, ‘UK & Regional Rates’.

[25] In 2006 and 2007, upwards of one in three adults were keen, but in 2009 the proportion had slipped to less than one in four. In 2009, 6.1 per cent of UK adults expected to start a business within three years, which is low by international standards: among G7 nations, the figure was 8 per cent and, in the US, it was 11 per cent. Levie and Hart, op cit, p4.

[26] Ibid, pp22, 23.

[27] Fear of bankruptcy, losing one’s property and embarrassment were the main factors. Ibid, pp9, 10.

[28] In Africa, average growth is predicted to reach 4.5 per cent in 2010 and 5.2 per cent in 2011. OECD, African Economic Outlook 2010: Summary in English, 24 May 2010, p2, on http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/fileadmin/uploads/aeo/Resources/MS_ENG_AEO2010.pdf

[29] ONS, International Comparisons of Productivity, Tables 3 and 4, 18 February 2010, on

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/ICP_HeadlineTables.xls. Figures are calculated on the basis of constant purchasing power parities.

[30] Ibid, Tables 1 and 2. Figures are calculated on the basis of current purchasing power parities.

[31] Department for Business Innovation & Skills, Statistical press release (corrected version July 2010), 14 October 2009, on http://stats.bis.gov.uk/ed/sme/Stats%20Press%20release%202008%20edition%20-%20corrected%20version%20July%202010.pdf. For a discussion of UK retail productivity in an international context, see Oxford Institute of Retail Management, Assessing the Productivity of the UK Retail Sector, April 2004, on http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/+/http://www.dti.gov.uk/retaildoc/productivity.pdf

[32] Barclays, ‘Britain isn’t queuing’, 4 August 2010, on www.newsroom.barclays.com/Press-releases/Britain-isn-t-queuing-6ff.aspx

[33] National House-Building Council (NHBC), ‘House building registrations fluctuate’, 23 July 2010, on www.nhbc.co.uk/NewsandComment/Name,41349,en.html

[34] NHBC Chief Executive Imtiaz Farookhi, quoted in NHBC, ‘2008 Home Starts Lowest on Record’, 23 January 2009, on http://www.nhbc.co.uk/NewsandComment/UKnewhouse-buildingstatistics/Year2008/Name,36493,en.html

[35] Ofgem, Project Discovery Energy Market Scenarios, 9 October 2009, p55, on www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/WhlMkts/Discovery/Documents1/Discovery_Scenarios_ConDoc_FINAL.pdf

[36] Department for Transport, TSGB 2009 Chapter 7: Road lengths – data tables, Table 7.6, ‘Roads lengths: Great Britain: 1914-2008’, 26 November 2009, on www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/roadstraffic/roadlengths/chapter7roadlengthsdatat1874.xls

[37] British Chambers of Commerce, Reconnecting Britain: A Business Infrastructure Survey, April 2010, page 4, on www.britishchambers.org.uk/6798219246885060772/BCC%20Infrastructure%20Survey.pdf

[38] High-Speed Rail UK, ‘On board with HSR:UK’, on www.highspeedrailuk.com, and ‘Connectivity & economic development’, on www.highspeedrailuk.com/?page_id=95