Alex Depledge, the Treasury’s entrepreneurship adviser, will leave the role on Thursday, warning ministers that the government treats entrepreneurship and innovation as “a sideshow” while directing taxpayer money towards legacy industries.
Depledge, 45, was appointed by the then chancellor Rachel Reeves in June 2025. She departs after two Budgets under two chancellors, the second of which John Healey delivers on Wednesday.
“Keeping scale-ups on the fringes underestimates the contribution of our greatest companies, and we need to support and develop them on British shores at all costs,” she said, speaking at her Surrey home. “We treat them as a bit of a sideshow.”
“Entrepreneurship can’t be seen as a good news bonus on the margins of economic policy,” she added.
Depledge previously founded the property technology company Resi and Hassle.com, a marketplace for cleaners that was acquired by a German rival for €32m (£27m). “When I first turned up at the Treasury, it was like organ rejection,” she said.
After Reeves left her post in July, Depledge said she was unsure whether she still had a job until Healey asked her to stay on at the end of August. She said she then had to “relitigate all the arguments I had already won” with Healey and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary.
Under Reeves, Depledge had fortnightly meetings with the chancellor. Of Healey, she said: “I’ve had barely any face time with him.”
Depledge declined to detail the measures she has proposed for the Budget, but said they build on changes she helped secure last year. Those included extending the enterprise management incentives (EMI) scheme, which makes it easier for young companies to offer share options to key staff. She suggested there could be an incentive for founders themselves this time.
Healey has ruled out a rise in capital gains tax. A group of entrepreneurs has written to him urging him to protect Business Asset Disposal Relief, previously known as entrepreneurs’ relief, and to consider tax breaks for founders who reinvest their proceeds in other British businesses.
The letter was organised by Shalini Khemka, founder of business network E2E, and Lord (Howard) Leigh, founder of investment bank Cavendish. Signatories include RWS chairman Andrew Brode, 55/Redefined founder Lyndsey Simpson and Woodland Group chairman Kevin Stevens.
Business Matters reported on Monday that Healey is also considering charging income tax on some family business handovers.
Healey has said: “I want to be a chancellor who backs business in Britain making a profit, and those entrepreneurs who, in the end, are the ones who challenge the status quo, come up with innovative ideas and are trying, some of them through sheer bloody-mindedness, to keep going through these sorts of pressures.”
“Where’s the real economy? They think it’s over here with steel, cars and hard hats, that this is the ‘main event’,” she said. “And my argument has always been: no, scale-ups are the main event.”
She said scale-ups, companies that grow by at least 20 per cent a year for three years, generate a disproportionate share of British business turnover. In February, Depledge drew criticism from hospitality leaders after saying Britain does not need more restaurants.
On artificial intelligence, she said the UK was “in grave danger of not having a seat at the table”, adding: “The window is 18 months. That’s it.”
She also called for more pension money to be directed towards growth companies. “There’s £3trn of capital sitting there that is not working for our pensioners and it’s not working for our high-growth companies,” she said.
Depledge said her main reason for leaving was that “at my very core, I’m an entrepreneur”, adding that she misses “the pace and chaos of running a business”.
James Parsons, chief executive of Build Circle, a UK technology consultancy, said: “UK plc has to capitalise on this window of opportunity – listening to leaders like Alex Depledge is exactly what the government should be doing, not pushing them away.”
Jamie Young
Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the 'covid era' and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine's coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk
