The Young innovators act
Making it clear, safe, and legal for children to build real businesses in the UK.
What is
The Young Innovators Act?
The Young Innovators Act is a proposed UK framework designed to modernise how the law treats children who build and run businesses.
Right now, many children are creating real income through, digital products, content, AI, physical products and services. The problem is not the effort or the ideas, it is the lack of clear rules.
This creates confusion for families, venues, banks, and local authorities. Children are building responsibly, but the system has not caught up.
Why it matters
The current system was not designed for modern child entrepreneurs. There is no clear guidance on
• what children are allowed to do
• how earnings should be handled
• what protections should be in place
• how venues and partners can support them confidently
The result is hesitation, inconsistency, and missed opportunities for young people who are learning real world skills.
Our role
Why we are involved
This act was born directly from lived experience.
The Little Dreamers started as a learning project and quickly became something real
.
Along the way, we encountered unclear rules, mixed messages, and a system that did not know how to categorise children who are capable, supported, and building responsibly.
Rather than working around the gaps, we are pushing to fix them.
What we
are asking
for
What the Act aims to introduce
The Young Innovators Act aims to create
• clear national guidance for child-run micro businesses
• simple rules around earnings and reinvestment
• protections that encourage learning, not restriction
• confidence for venues, partners, and families
• recognition that modern skills deserve modern policy
This is not about removing safeguards. It is about replacing uncertainty with clarity.
What we
are asking
for
What the Act aims to introduce
The Young Innovators Act aims to create
• clear national guidance for child-run micro businesses
• simple rules around earnings and reinvestment
• protections that encourage learning, not restriction
• confidence for venues, partners, and families
• recognition that modern skills deserve modern policy
This is not about removing safeguards. It is about replacing uncertainty with clarity.
For anyone who’d like to explore this idea in more detail, we’ve shared the documents that sit behind the Young Innovators Act.
These outline the thinking, questions, and proposals we’ve been working on, and are here for transparency, discussion, and feedback.
Read the proposal Here
Please Show your Support
The Young Innovators Act proposes a modern framework to support young people who are building skills, businesses, and innovation safely and responsibly.
This form allows individuals to show support for reviewing and updating outdated child enterprise laws, while keeping safeguarding at the centre.