Female Entrepreneurship

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am certainly happy to go with the noble Lord on that. He points out, rightly, that the report says that there are 1.1 million fewer women setting up their own businesses compared to the proportion of men doing so in the country. The ambition to change that would therefore result in a boost of some £250 billion to the economy. The report makes interesting reading on the barriers to employment: childcare is certainly a major one. That is why the 30 hours of free childcare for parents of three to four year-olds is such an important contribution, but we are aware that much more needs to be done. The report has given the Government a clear working strategy going forward.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, if we want,

“to strengthen the UK’s position as one of the best places in the world for women to start and grow a business”,

as the report says, then no one can be left behind. The Government’s response to the Rose report refers to:

“Easing the financial costs of family care with new banking products”.


Will the Minister outline the government thinking about what these products could be and how they will help the estimated 1.1 million women entrepreneur start-ups that the report estimates are missing from the economic life of this country? If he does not have the facts right at his fingertips, perhaps he would undertake to write to me.

[Lord Bates]

I would be happy to do that to expand but, briefly, the thought was that one of the barriers was in female access to venture capital. An interesting study on that identified bias in the system against female entrepreneurs. It therefore came up with some ideas, along with the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association and Diversity VC, on how that could be addressed. I think we all recognise that the great research and data that we have seen in the report has given us the ideas to think about policy solutions for the future.