Glover at Amadeus adds that a lack of capital means entrepreneurs are spending more time trying to find suitable investors.
“Our entrepreneurs here generally raise money every 18 months but often more frequently than that,” says Glover. “And they can spend as much as 30pc to 50pc of their time fundraising.
“In the US, they get it done in 10pc or 20pc of their time which means they’re spending 80pc of their talent on building a great product and team and satisfying customers. And our teams are just distracted and stretched and always on the road trying to raise capital.”
And then there’s the ever-expanding rulebook.
Analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies of National Audit Office (NAO) data in 2019 found there are around 90 regulatory bodies in the UK that spend nearly £6.1bn of public money every year. While some have been shuttered, others have popped up in their place, leaving the regulatory environment anything but simple and stable.
“We face a barrage of regulation, most of which is saying the same things in different ways,” says James Palmer, a senior partner at Herbert Smith Freehills.
“To be honest with you, a lot of the new rules are wonderful for the legal profession because they mean everybody needs to spend more money with us, but they are not good for the country at all.”
Palmer, a mergers and acquisitions specialist, says the box-ticking has become more onerous.
“When I started out as a lawyer nearly 40 years ago there would be a couple of paragraphs in a company’s accounts describing several directors’ remuneration,” he adds.
“We now have two executive directors in a public company, but probably between 25 and 30 pages describing the remuneration and incentives of those two directors. I think that is ludicrous.”
‘A ludicrous mismatch’
It’s one of the reasons Spencer is staying away from the boardroom.
“I ran a public company for 20 years and we found that the proportion of time spent by the board discussing business opportunities was progressively overtaken by regulatory issues.
“What was our diversity policy? ESG? To the point where more than half the board’s time was devoted to regulatory and compliance issues that don’t make a dime of difference to the profitability of a company.
“To me, that’s a ludicrous mismatch and it’s one of the reasons why I haven’t taken a position in a public company since.”
Palmer has some sympathy for the regulators. “On the one hand, we’ve got all political parties telling them, ‘We want growth, so don’t impede growth.’ But every time anything bad happens, they turn around and blame them and say, ‘Why did you not stop this happening?’
“We’ve started behaving as if it is the state’s job to fix everything.”
Labour wants to be the party of wealth creation. But it also mentions some version of the word “regulation” no fewer than 27 times in its manifesto, including a commitment to a new “Regulatory Innovation Office” to “promote innovation”.
It has also outlined plans to introduce “binding regulation” on AI, a “tougher system of regulation” for energy providers”, and “new powers” to block bonuses to water executives and to “strengthen regulation” of children’s social care.
It wants to finish what Rishi Sunak started and create a new football regulator – a pledge that followed the failed attempt by clubs to form a breakaway Super League, as well as the collapse of Bury FC in 2019.