I’ve never been one for sugar-coating things, so let’s be clear. Britain has become one of the worst places in the developed world to be an entrepreneur, and the Government seems either oblivious or indifferent to the damage it’s doing.

Recent polling by think tank the Jobs Foundation of more than 1,150 family businesses and farms confirms what business owners have been shouting for years: the UK is actively hostile to those who create jobs, take risks and build companies that last.

This isn’t whingeing. This is economic reality.

Pessimism and ambition deficit

Seventy-eight per cent of family businesses are pessimistic about the UK economy in 2026. Only 17 per cent would tell a young person to start a business here. When the next generation has no faith in the system, the game is already over.

Family businesses are the engine room of Britain’s economy. They employ millions, support communities and think in decades, not quarters. And yet 80 per cent say the Government doesn’t understand what it’s like to run a business, while more than three-quarters say successive governments have lacked the ambition to make Britain competitive.

Here’s a statistic that should make ministers squirm: business owners are five times more likely to say the 1970s were a better decade for tax and regulation than the 2020s. That’s not nostalgia, that’s an indictment.

Then we come to the real killer: Business Property Relief.

The changes coming in April are nothing short of an assault on family businesses. Among those who understand what’s coming, a majority say it will directly affect their future plans, and 63 per cent say it’s demoralising to know they can no longer pass on as much of their business to their children.

Forced Sales

That’s the point where the penny drops. Why bother building something for the long term if the reward is a tax bill that forces your family to sell it off? This is how you destroy the backbone of an economy. Not with one big bang, but with a slow, bureaucratic strangulation.

It’s already happening. More than 40 per cent say inheritance tax affects their business planning today. Farmers are even worse off, with nearly three-quarters saying the changes will hit their future plans. These aren’t abstract numbers, they’re family firms deciding whether to sell, shrink or walk away.

And let’s talk about the Budget. By a margin of more than 20 to one, family businesses say recent Budgets will harm rather than help them. Just three per cent think they’ll benefit. Seven in ten say it won’t make the UK more competitive. And 68 per cent don’t believe the Chancellor when she says growth is the Government’s top priority.

If growth really mattered, policy wouldn’t look like this.

Sinking Ship

So, is it any wonder entrepreneurs are leaving Britain like passengers abandoning a sinking ship? When taxes rise, costs explode, regulation multiplies and effort is punished, people don’t stay out of loyalty, they leave out of common sense.

Soon Britain will be left with Captain Keir and First Mate Reeves, standing proudly on deck, congratulating themselves as the vessel slips beneath the waves.

What’s truly damning is that 43 per cent of family businesses trust no political party at all to help them thrive. That’s not a political problem, it’s a legitimacy crisis.

And don’t insult business owners by calling this greed. The polling shows most didn’t start companies to get rich. They did it to be their own boss, provide a good service, look after their families and employ people they know by name.

They’re not asking for handouts. They’re asking not to be punished for succeeding.

Stop persecuting ambition

Lower energy costs. Reverse the hike in employer National Insurance. Fix business rates. And stop penalising families for wanting to pass on what they’ve spent their lives building. Ignore these warnings and Britain won’t just lose businesses, it will lose ambition, jobs and its economic future.

The bell is tolling for family businesses. The question is whether anyone in power is listening, or whether they’re content to preside over the decline.