2. How do you rate cultural values as a barrier compared to the financial ones and what do you think could be done to overcome them? In 2018 Alison Rose, head of commercial private banking at RBS, and leading female banker, accepted an invitation from Robert Jerrick MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, to carry out a review of the barriers to female entrepreneurship with the aim of making it easier for women to achieve their aspirations and to unlock their potential. The report, which was based on an extensive literature review and in-depth interviews of a large number of women across several regions in the UK, was published in 2019 (Rose, 2019). It has been calculated that an expansion of female entrepreneurship on a parity with men could add up to £250 billion of new value to the UK economy.

Over 1000 new businesses are started every day in Britain (Anon, 2018) but, according to Rose, the ratio of female entrepreneurs to males is 0.46 in the UK. In the Netherlands it is 0.9 and Spain 0.8.

Fewer UK women choose to become entrepreneurs than in best-practice countries at every stage (i.e., intention, starting up, sustaining and scaling up to a £1 million turnover). Only 8.6% of UK women aspire to start a business compared with 20% in Canada. Women are more likely to start a business in sectors they know well and are concentrated in fields with low output per capita – education and personal services.

They are less well represented in sectors with high output per labour hour such as manufacturing, information/communication, financial services and transport, which reflects their lower possession of qualifications in science, technology, engineering and maths