The Treasury’s entrepreneurship adviser is stepping down after accusing ministers of treating Britain’s fastest-growing companies as a “sideshow” while directing taxpayer money towards traditional industries.
Alex Depledge, appointed by former chancellor Rachel Reeves in June 2025, will leave the role on Thursday, a day after John Healey delivers his first Budget.
“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 told The Sunday Times.
“We treat them as a bit of a sideshow”.
Depledge, who founded property technology firm Resi and cleaning marketplace Hassle.com, argued that ministers were overlooking high-growth businesses in favour of established industries.
“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”.
Her departure comes amid mounting frustration among British founders over taxes, access to investment and the government’s approach to economic growth.
Depledge also criticised the disruption caused by July’s change of chancellor, saying she had been forced to repeat arguments she had already won under Reeves.
“With John Healey and Johnny Reynolds, I had to relitigate all the arguments I had already won – and win them again”, she said.
While she held fortnightly meetings with Reeves, Depledge said she had “barely any face time” with Healey.
Founders press chancellor ahead of Budget
Depledge declined to disclose the measures she had proposed for Wednesday’s Budget but suggested they could include new incentives for company founders.
Last year, she helped secure an expansion of the Enterprise Management Incentives scheme, which allows growing businesses to offer tax-advantaged share options to employees.
Her exit comes as entrepreneurs urge Healey to protect Business Asset Disposal Relief, which reduces the tax paid by qualifying business owners when they sell their companies.
A group of founders has also called for tax breaks for entrepreneurs who reinvest the proceeds of business sales into other British companies.
Meanwhile, a survey of 400 scale-up founders by business network Helm found that 73 per cent were not at all confident the Budget would be good for business.
Healey has ruled out an increase in capital gains tax and pledged to back entrepreneurs who take risks and build profitable companies.
But Depledge warned that Britain risked missing out on the economic benefits of AI unless it moved faster to support domestic technology firms.
“We are in grave danger of not having a seat at the table”, she said. “The window is 18 months. That’s it”.
She also called for more pension fund investment in British growth companies, arguing that too much domestic capital was flowing overseas.
“There’s £3t trillion of capital sitting there that is not working for our pensioners and it’s not working for our high-growth companies”, she said.
Depledge previously told City AM that Britain’s startup environment had deteriorated over several years, arguing that founders needed better access to funding and incentives to retain talent.
“This has been a slow decline, right? That didn’t start with this current government”, she said last year.
Depledge said her decision to leave was also driven by a desire to return to business, adding: “At my very core, I’m an entrepreneur.”