Help over-50s set up business to boost economy, MPs say

hl.co.uk:

We don’t support this browser anymore. This means our website may not look and work as you would expect. Read more about browsers and how to update them here.

Newsroom

Newsroom articles are published by leading news agencies. Hargreaves Lansdown is not responsible for an article's content and its accuracy. We may not share the views of the author.

HL Podcast

HL Insight

Proposed scheme to tackle rising number of economically inactive since pandemic.

Article originally published by The Telegraph. Hargreaves Lansdown is not responsible for its content or accuracy and may not share the author's views. News and research are not personal recommendations to deal. All investments can fall in value so you could get back less than you invest.

Published by

20 Jul 2023

Older people who are out of work should be given support to start their own businesses, MPs have said.

A report by the Work and Pensions Select Committee has suggested a self-employment support programme could help reduce the level of economic inactivity in people over 50, as well as disabled people.

The scheme, if implemented, would replace the Enterprise Allowance scheme, which paid out to entrepreneurs first setting up on their own and closed in January 2022. As many as 161,000 businesses were set up under the previous scheme, of which more than 31,000 were started by people aged over 50.

MP Stephen Timms, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, said that providing support for older people to start their own businesses was an “ideal way” to help them back into work.

“There are quite a lot of advantages to being self-employed, particularly for older people and people with health difficulties, because the flexibility that it allows can be a real boon,”