Merryn Somerset Webb

So when it comes to potential scale-ups, the unicorns prospectively of tomorrow are

We are an innovation nation.

We are smashing the lights out relative to the rest of Europe and arguably even relative to the US.

The key, Merrin, is, of course, to nurture those cults and thoroughbreds.

to enable them to grow the wings.

Well, this is slightly the problem, isn't it?

That we can be first in terms of exciting companies and still 27th in terms of GDP per capita.

How do we keep those companies here?

I mean, 20 years ago, companies of that size that you're talking about would already have listed and the wealth would already have been shared around.

That's not the case now.

So how do we keep those companies here?

How do we encourage more of them?

And crucially, also from our point of view, how do we get those companies to list and make the UK stock market part of the equation?

Yeah, yeah.

So lots in there.

Let me pick off some bits of them.

So obviously, the better the enabling environment is,

all the stuff we mentioned earlier on, the more likely it is that they will grow, the more likely it is that they will stay.

So that's a kind of prerequisite, I think, for growing our own, given that the seed corn is plentiful and strong.

When we look at, you know, the UK scale-up problem is not a new problem.