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Rishi Sunak has conceded that the multi-billion-pound business support schemes he designed as chancellor during the pandemic propped up companies that “would and should” have gone under, in a striking admission that has reignited the debate over how far the state should go to keep struggling firms alive.

Writing in The Times to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, the former prime minister argued that Britain must learn to embrace the “creative destruction” that has powered the US economy ahead of its rivals, even if that means watching more businesses fail.

“It is never easy to sit in the Treasury and watch a business go under, but intervening is nearly always the wrong thing to do,” Sunak wrote, adding that the rush to assemble Covid support schemes left no time to distinguish between fundamentally weak firms and viable businesses knocked sideways by lockdowns. “As chancellor, this was one of the things I worried about most: had these interventions upended the natural processes of the economy? I fear they did.”

The intervention will resonate uncomfortably with the hundreds of thousands of small business owners who credit furlough, bounce back loans and business rates relief with their survival, but Sunak’s diagnosis of the UK’s underlying malaise is harder to dismiss.

At the heart of his argument is the claim that Britain’s economy has lost its dynamism. Nearly one in ten listed UK firms is now a so-called zombie company, generating just enough cash to service its debts and little else, a figure that has doubled since the financial crisis. As Business Matters reported earlier this year, a fresh wave of zombie firms is already facing collapse as HMRC begins to call in pandemic-era tax arrears.

Sunak points to OECD research on declining business dynamism showing that firm entry and exit rates have fallen by around three percentage points across the developed world since 2000. Before the financial crisis, the churn of firms entering and leaving the market added an estimated 0.7 per cent to UK productivity growth. That contribution has since collapsed to just 0.1 per cent.

The contrast with the United States is stark. The median age of America’s 20 largest listed companies has fallen from 124 years in 2010 to 50 in 2025, as new technology firms displaced older incumbents. In the UK, the equivalent figure has risen from 94 to 121 over the same period.

The result, Sunak argues, is an economy in which neither labour nor capital flows to where it is most productive. UK GDP per head now sits 42 per cent below America’s, and Office for National Statistics comparisons show British output per hour worked has trailed the US, France and Germany for four decades, though as Business Matters has previously explored, not everyone accepts the conventional reading of Britain’s productivity numbers.

Sunak attributes American outperformance to four factors: cheap and abundant energy, with British firms paying four times as much for power as their US counterparts; faster technology adoption; the dollar’s reserve currency status; and, above all, a culture that treats business failure as a normal part of entrepreneurship rather than a political emergency.

The former Conservative leader reserved particular criticism for the Employment Rights Act, which he described as “sclerosis-inducing” legislation that has undermined Britain’s flexible labour market, and which he said any future government serious about growth would have to repeal. The legislation, which cleared its final parliamentary hurdle last year, has drawn repeated warnings from small firms over hiring costs and tribunal risk.

His conclusion is unlikely to win many votes, but it is refreshingly candid for a former occupant of Number 11: “We can’t, and shouldn’t wish to, save every business. We must learn to love creative destruction or see our economic power destroyed.”

For SME owners, the message cuts both ways. A more dynamic economy promises cheaper capital, better staff and bigger opportunities for the productive majority. But it also means that the next time a crisis hits, the safety net may be considerably smaller.

Paul Jones

Harvard alumni and former New York Times journalist. Editor of Business Matters for over 15 years, the UKs largest business magazine. I am also head of Capital Business Media’s automotive division working for clients such as Red Bull Racing, Honda, Aston Martin and Infiniti.

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There is a phrase beloved of every business school lecturer, every venture capitalist and every man who has ever worn a gilet to a breakfast meeting: the level playing field.

It is the founding myth of competition itself, the idea that we all start from the same line, breathe the same air and sweat, roughly speaking, the same sweat. And this summer, FIFA has taken that noble concept, marched it into the Philadelphia sunshine and left it there to blister.

Because let us be clear about what is actually happening at this World Cup. On Saturday afternoon, France and Paraguay were sent out to play knockout football in Philadelphia with the heat index nudging an obscene 40C, the sort of temperature at which sensible nations close the shops, draw the shutters and lie down until October. Meanwhile, other teams in this very same tournament have spent a month wafting about in Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, three fully enclosed, climate-controlled pleasure domes where the thermostat sits at a serene 22C, roughly a fifth of all matches are being played in air-conditioned comfort, and the greatest physical hazard is an over-chilled bottle of Gatorade.

That is not a level playing field. That is not even the same sport. That is judging oranges against oranges, yes, but one orange has been kept in the fridge and the other has been left on the dashboard of a Ford Focus in a Texas car park.

And tonight it gets better, or worse, depending on whether you are English. England face Mexico at the Estadio Azteca, a cathedral of footballing suffering that sits 2,240 metres above sea level, where the air is thin, the oxygen is rationed and the home side has been living, training and playing up in the clouds all tournament. Mexico have played three of their four matches at the Azteca. England have had a few days to acclimatise to conditions that physiologists suggest need weeks. It is the sporting equivalent of asking a Surrey accountancy firm to pitch for a contract in Mexico City, in Spanish, while mildly concussed.

Now, I can already hear the rejoinder. Sport has always had its quirks of geography. True enough. But there is a difference between charming local variation and a structural inequality baked into the draw. When one quarter-finalist has spent the group stage at a constant 22C and another has been slow-roasted in Miami and Monterrey at wet-bulb temperatures the medics politely describe as dangerous, the bracket itself becomes a lottery of thermodynamics. Uzbekistan, delightfully, drew the coolest schedule of the lot. Tunisia drew the hottest. Neither earned it. The air conditioning did.

FIFA’s answer to all this has been the cooling break, that strange little ritual in which 22 millionaires gather round a cool box like wildebeest at a watering hole while the referee studies his watch. It is a sticking plaster on a sunburn. A three-minute pause does not undo 87 minutes of playing in conditions that would get a building site shut down in Britain, and everyone from the players’ union to the team doctors knows it.

Business readers will recognise this pattern instantly, because it is how markets fail. It is the incumbent with the subsidised energy contract competing against the start-up paying spot prices. We would call it an uneven regulatory environment and write furious letters about it. FIFA calls it a tournament.

And here is the properly British irony: while the players wilt, the UK economy is having a lovely time of it. The tills are singing to the tune of a £3.8 billion World Cup spending boost for pubs, bookmakers and takeaways, and smart small firms are already thinking MATCH to win the event economy. The only heat map that matters in Britain this month is the one showing which beer gardens have a big screen.

Tonight’s kick-off lands at 1am UK time, which is why unions are begging employers to allow flexible working on Monday morning, and why half the nation’s middle managers will be conducting their 9am stand-up from behind sunglasses. Spare a thought, as you yawn, for Harry Kane and colleagues, who will be conducting theirs at altitude, on 40 per cent less oxygen, against 87,000 Mexicans who regard the Azteca as a family heirloom.

So no, this World Cup is not judging oranges with oranges. It is a magnificent, chaotic, occasionally dangerous experiment in competitive inequality, and whoever lifts the trophy will deserve an asterisk shaped like a thermometer. If England prevail tonight, breathless in every sense, it will rank among our finest away days. And if we lose, well, at least we will have the excuse ready before kick-off. Which, as any England fan will tell you, is the true national sport.

Richard Alvin

Richard Alvin is a serial entrepreneur, a former advisor to the UK Government about small business and an Honorary Teaching Fellow on Business at Lancaster University.

A winner of the London Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the year and Freeman of the City of London for his services to business and charity. Richard is also Group MD of Capital Business Media and SME business research company Trends Research, regarded as one of the UK’s leading experts in the SME sector and an active angel investor and advisor to new start companies.

Richard is also the host of Save Our Business the U.S. based business advice television show.

For many UK SMEs, site security still means a guard, a keypad, and a barrier that opens when someone waves a fob out of the window.

It works until it does not. With extended hours, more third-party deliveries, and mixed-use sites, the entrance becomes a pressure point where delays and security gaps show up first.

Modern vehicle access control is increasingly an operational tool, not just a security add-on. Done well, it reduces queues, cuts manual checks, and creates an audit trail of who entered, when, and under what permissions.

The hidden costs of everyday vehicle movements

Common issues around vehicle entry are rarely dramatic, but they are expensive:

– Bottlenecks at peak times that delay staff and disrupt deliveries

– Tailgating, where an unauthorised vehicle follows a permitted one through the barrier

– Shared credentials (cards, codes, fobs) that are hard to control once they circulate

Even a small queue at the gate can ripple through the day. Missed delivery slots, late engineers, and frustrated visitors all add up.

What modern systems do differently

Instead of relying on a driver to stop, present a pass, and wait for a decision, modern setups identify vehicles automatically and apply rules in the background.

A typical flow is simple:

1. A vehicle identifier is issued, such as a tag linked to a vehicle or user
2. A reader detects it at the entrance
3. Software checks permissions, including time windows and zones
4. The barrier opens and the event is logged

For SMEs, the key shift is policy-based access. Contractors can be allowed in only during set hours. Visitors can be granted temporary access that expires automatically. Regular suppliers can be approved for specific days or time slots.

Where the ROI comes from

Return on investment is usually a combination of time saved and risk reduced. SMEs typically see value in:

– Faster throughput at entry and exit, reducing congestion and improving punctuality

– Lower overhead by reducing the need for staffed checkpoints

– Better security through unique identification and consistent enforcement

Automated logs also support incident response and insurance discussions by providing a clear record of vehicle movements.

Implementation checklist for SMEs

Vehicle access control projects do not have to be disruptive, but they benefit from a structured planning phase:

– Map vehicle types and scenarios, including staff, visitors, couriers, HGVs, and emergency access

– Define rules before technology, including time windows, zones, and exceptions

– Check integration needs, such as barriers, intercoms, CCTV or VMS, and parking management

– Plan credential management, including onboarding, offboarding, and temporary access

Choosing a solution that scales

The best systems grow with the business by adding entrances, supporting more vehicle types, and integrating with wider security and parking workflows. For SMEs exploring options, established approaches to vehicle access control can support secure, hands-free identification and integration with existing infrastructure.

The bottom line

For UK SMEs, controlling vehicle entry is no longer just about stopping the wrong car. It is about keeping operations moving, reducing avoidable labour costs, and building a more resilient security posture. With the right rules and technology, the gate can shift from being a daily bottleneck to a streamlined, auditable part of the business.