John Healey gave his first big speech as Chancellor on Monday. It set out a broad vision rather than focus on detail. Nevertheless, there was much to welcome — the Fingleton Review on nuclear regulation to be delivered in full and its approach extended into other sectors; a commitment to cut the administrative burden of business regulation by 25% by the end of the Parliament; and judicial review reforms extended from energy to all major infrastructure to prevent the kinds of “vexatious legislation and vexatious litigation” that currently block economic growth.
Healey also set out a commitment to cross-economy sandboxing powers, covering pavement robots to drones to medical treatments — which is in line with what founders told us they needed when we brought together robotics founders with the Regulatory Innovation Office. There is also to be an end to what the Chancellor called the “consultation culture” at the Treasury. These are good signs, but we’ll be watching the Autumn Budget closely on 28 October for more detail. In particular, we’ll be keeping an eye out for the recommendations we submitted via the Treasury’s stakeholder portal earlier this week.
One of the lines that struck me from the speech was that the Chancellor set out “an ambition now to double the number of unicorn firms.” The Hurun UK Unicorn Index 2026 finds 80 unicorns in the UK, worth £242.4 billion, third in the world behind the United States and China, and more than Germany, France, and the Netherlands combined. Dealroom, meanwhile, says it currently tracks 205 unicorns in the UK. Tracxn finds there are 102, using a definition that keeps counting companies after they list or get bought. On top of this, the Chancellor gave no date by which this target of doubling the number of unicorns should be measured against. If a target doesn’t have a baseline or a deadline, it’s a fairly movable goal. Is the target 160, 204, 410 unicorns, or some other number altogether — and over what timeframe?
As we noted in Perennial Gale in June, revisiting Josh Lerner’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams, there are two ways for a government to help venture capital. One is to raise the demand for it by making the country somewhere worth building in. The other is to raise the supply by providing finance. Too often, we choose the latter. On Monday, we saw £150 million from the British Business Bank for scale-ups in the North, as well as a Northern 500 to convene the region’s most ambitious mid-sized firms. But as Keith Griffiths of The Entrepreneur Festival pointed out, the Government shouldn’t confuse writing cheques with creating growth. The cost of electricity, tax levels and bureaucratic burden still need to be addressed.
Healey’s speech also championed the idea of the state as early first customer. As founders have told us, a first public contract can be worth more to a startup than a grant because it’s also an endorsement. But in May we wrote about a British company knocked off G-Cloud for negative EBITDA and a light balance sheet, which describes nearly every growth-stage technology company. Officials looked at it again and reinstated the listing, and yet the rule that blocked it is still on the books. The Government cannot be a first customer when the process is designed to avoid first-time suppliers. If the Chancellor wants the state buying from the next wave, he should undo the financial-health tests that disqualify loss-making growth companies and stop marking bids on everything except the bid.
Corner Shop
Healey told his audience the economy was turning a corner. This morning’s figures have given him something to point to. Monthly GDP grew 0.4% in July, against an expectation of no growth at all, following 0.3% in June. On the three-month measure the ONS prefers, output also rose 0.4% against the three months to April (the eighth consecutive three-month rise) and was 1.3% up on the same period a year earlier.
This growth was down to services, which are up 0.6% over the three months, with professional, scientific and technical activities up 2.1% and information and communication up 2.5%. By contrast, production and construction each fell 0.5%. That’s not ideal for a speech delivered at an advanced manufacturing centre.