Callum Anderson

The National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021 gives the Government power to scrutinise and intervene in acquisitions that may pose threats to national security, whilst also supporting secure and resilient growth. All sectors are within scope of the NSI Act, with acquisitions of entities related to 17 sensitive areas of the economy having to notify and receive approval from the Government before the acquisition can be completed.

The Government is taking a number of steps to ensure the continued effectiveness of the NSI Act.

• The previous Government published a Call for Evidence in November 2023 and a response in April 2024. The Call for Evidence sought feedback from a wide range of stakeholders on the scope of the regime, the notification process and Government guidance and comms. The Government is currently considering its next steps, drawing on responses received.

• The Government will review and produce a report on the mandatory notification areas under the NSI Act, as required by section 4 of the Notifiable Acquisitions Regulations 2021, before January 2025.

• The Government will complete a Post-Implementation Review, as committed to in the NSI Act Impact Assessment, evaluating the effectiveness of the NSI Act. This is expected to be published in 2026.

• The Government regularly engages with stakeholders on the NSI Act, including speaking events, meetings and feedback exercises.

The Government has published extensive guidance for businesses and investors. The NSI Act Market Guidance sets out what businesses and investors, including small and medium-sized businesses, need to be aware of and is available on GOV.UK. The guidance is kept under review to ensure it remains up to date.

The “National Security & Investment Act 2021: Annual Report 2023-2024” published in September shows that the NSI system is continuing to run well and as intended. It demonstrates that we have the powers to protect sensitive sectors whilst continuing to support investment. Analysis to date has not found evidence of the Act affecting the total volume of investment into the UK.

The UK’s approach to investment screening is in line with many other countries, including our close allies. We continue to work closely with international partners to draw on global best practice.

On 16 June the US confirmed that certain UK aerospace products will no longer be subject to US tariffs. This deal is a win for the UK's world-class aerospace sector which was facing additional 10% tariffs, helping make companies more competitive and allowing them to continue to be at the cutting edge of innovation. The removal of US tariffs helps suppliers continue to do business in the US and deliver growth in the UK.

The Small Business Commissioner has played a crucial role in helping small businesses get paid on time since the role was introduced in 2016. However, this Government is aware of the challenges that small businesses continue to face with regards to late payment.

The Government is committed to consulting on proposals that would increase the powers available to the Small Business Commissioner in order to improve its effectiveness in tackling late payments and poor payment practices. The consultation outcome will be published shortly.

My Department welcomes the opportunities that come from the Government’s recent announcements on trade arrangements with the USA, alongside those from our longstanding defence cooperation agreements, which support our growth ambitions. We work directly with British Industry and trade associations to provide appropriate support to UK business including the aerospace sector, to access opportunities, including at trade shows in the US and globally, such as the recent Paris Air Show and DSEI later this year.

Businesses in shallower finance markets outside London and the South East are less likely to be able to access growth capital, meaning high-potential businesses may be forced to relocate or else accept slower growth. The British Business Bank’s Nations and Regions Investment Funds help close the gap by providing finance for businesses to invest and grow across the UK, meaning the growth and jobs created by businesses benefit local communities. In the longer term, the Funds will create more dynamic ecosystems made up of investment-savvy business owners and private investors who know there are good investment propositions available.

The estimated equity finance gap (the difference between actual equity investment and potential equity investment) for all but established companies was £7.5 billion in 2021. [1] There is an equity finance gap in every region and nation of the UK; London has the largest absolute equity finance gap, while Yorkshire and Humber has the largest relative gap. [2] The British Business Bank is helping to close that gap through its Nations and Regions Investment Funds and the Regional Angels Programme, which also attract additional private investment for businesses outside London and the South East.

[1] Supporting Innovative Start-Up and Growing Businesses: Equity Finance Provision through the Pandemic: Interim Report by Marek Kacer, Nick Wilson :: SSRN (DBT commissioned and funded)

[2] Equity Finance and the UK Regions (BEIS research paper)

The British Business Bank's finance programmes, including the Start Up Loans scheme, help SMEs in Buckingham and Bletchley to access the finance they need.

Together with the Treasury, my department launched a call for evidence on SME access to finance to assess existing policies and identify barriers. The call aims to improve access to finance and support SME growth. We are considering the responses we have received and will announce further measures in due course.

The Department for Business and Trade works across Africa offering direct support to UK businesses looking to expand their business in the region. This includes a dedicated team that advises UK businesses entering markets about doing business and investment environment. DBT focuses on markets, sectors, and deals where the UK has a competitive edge.

The Government is taking forward a new Industrial Strategy Partnership with Japan to support all UK businesses, including those from Buckingham and Bletchley through joint initiatives in innovation, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing and furthering our economic security partnership in support of growth, jobs and access to essential goods and services needed for the UK's future prosperity.

The Government is also supporting businesses in taking advantage of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in a variety of ways, from online export guidance to events with local chambers and trade associations.

The Department for Business and Trade has significantly increased trade and investment opportunities for food and drink producers through several trade agreements, including the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the UK-India Free Trade Agreement. These agreements will open new export markets for businesses in Buckinghamshire and across the UK.

Businesses can also benefit from the expanded Office for Investment, which will make it easier for top investors to work with government with the ability to originate and execute major deals, develop commercially attractive investment propositions in partnership with local political leaders and market the UK to investors around the world.

The UK-India FTA is estimated to increase bilateral trade by £25.5 billion, and UK GDP by £4.8 billion each and every year in the long term.

As part of this agreement, India will cut tariffs on a number of advanced manufacturing goods such as automotives, electrical circuits, high-end optical products, and medical devices.

We will set out further information on the sectoral impacts of this agreement in our Impact Assessment.

The 2022 Qatar-UK Strategic Investment Partnership is a long-term framework through which the two countries collaborate across a number of key UK industries, creating jobs and growth through investment, including in sectors vital for clean growth and decarbonisation through technology and innovation. December 2024’s announcement from Qatar to invest £1bn in UK climate technology demonstrates the strength of the arrangement’s potential impact.

As part of the UK-UAE Sovereign Investment Partnership, the Office for Investment has worked with Emirati investors to explore investment opportunities across the UK and UAE investment can be found across the UK, driving growth and prosperity across key sectors to the mutual benefit of both countries.

These investments include offshore wind in Scotland and advanced material research in North-West England. An expanded Office for Investment is working to make the UK the first choice for investment and the best place in the world to do business, turning regional growth plans into clear and commercially credible pipelines of investment opportunities.

The UK-New Zealand FTA benefits every region of the UK including Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. It also includes commitments to support SMEs to trade, including through a standalone SME chapter.

Data is not collected centrally on the impact of the UK-New Zealand trade agreement on SME exporters located in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. However, since entry into force, there are early indications of positive uptake of the agreement’s benefits by British exporters. According to official data from New Zealand, between June 2023 and Dec 2024 £164.2m (80.7%) of goods imports into New Zealand from the UK used preferential tariffs. Had these occurred at standard Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariff rates, they could have encountered an additional £9.3m in duties.

The Department for Business and Trade maintains strong relations with Gulf investors and encourages them towards opportunities in key growth sectors through the Strategic and Sovereign Investment partnerships coordinated by the Office for Investment.

We also encourage investment through broader diplomatic forums, such as the UK-Saudi Strategic Partnership Council.

Furthermore, we are negotiating a GCC Free Trade Agreement that will build on our strong investment relationship and support further investment, including in UK growth sectors.

The British Business Bank utilises accredited delivery partners to deliver its schemes. Under the Growth Guarantee Scheme (formerly the Recovery Loan Scheme), delivery partners are required to apply personal guarantees where they would in the course of their normal commercial lending. Under GGS and RLS 3, approximately 70% of facilities have been recorded by the lender as having a personal guarantee attached.

Business angels are a significant source of equity investment for start-up and early-stage businesses. Angel investments are typically private arrangements and therefore there is no requirement for them to be publicly reported.

The British Business Bank supports angel investment through its Regional Angels Programme, which helps reduce regional imbalances in access to early-stage equity finance for smaller businesses across the UK. As at March 2024 the Regional Angels Programme has committed £219m and supported 593 businesses.

In late June the British Business Bank will publish its annual Small Business Equity Tracker 2025. The report will include an analysis of the UK Business Angel Market and will also provide detail on equity deals in the South East region.

The Department for Business and Trade does not hold data relating to businesses also seeking finance from high street banks.

The British Business Bank publishes performance data on the Growth Guarantee Scheme (GGS) on a quarterly basis. Up to 31 December 2024, GGS has been utilised by accredited lenders to enable 13,447 scheme facilities, totalling £2.11 billion. The data is broken down by facility status, lender, nation and region, sector, facility type and size, company size, turnover and age of business, but does not define facilities by scale-up category.

Tiered interest rates relate to retail deposits and personal loans, not commercial finance.

Bank of England data shows that interest rates on lending by banks to UK SMEs are as follows:

In March 2025, effective interest rates for new SME loans were 6.75%

In March 2024, effective interest rates for new SME loans were 7.49%

In March 2023, effective interest rates for new SME loans were 6.36%

In March 2022, effective interest rates for new SME loans were 3.49%

Source: Bank of England

Earlier this year, DBT launched a call for evidence on access to finance to better understand the barriers that SMEs experience when applying for loans. However, currently available results from the SME Finance Monitor provides the following data on SMEs needing funding for R&D and new premises:

• In 2024, 7% of SMEs reported a need for funding. Of those SMEs reporting a need for funding, 6% needed funding for new premises and 4% needed funding for R&D.
• In 2022, 6% of SMEs reported a need for funding. Of those SMEs reporting a need for funding, 3% needed funding for new premises and 5% needed funding for R&D.
• In 2024, 47% of all applications for new or renewed finance by SMEs were successful.
• In 2022, 62% of all applications for new or renewed finance by SMEs were successful.

Source: SME Finance Monitor 2024 and 2022

The UK balances an open investment environment to facilitate growth while protecting the areas of our economy that are the most sensitive to national security. The National Security and Investment Act supports our economic sovereignty by giving us power to intervene where we need to, while allowing the vast majority of inward investment to proceed.

The NSI Act was inspired by, and brought the UK’s approach to investment screening in line with, many other countries, including our close allies. The Act is a product of close international cooperation to ensure the UK’s investment screening regime draws on global best practice.

DBT works with defence and aerospace companies to open markets, tackle trade disputes, provide SME support, and connect business to export opportunities.

Through the Aerospace Growth Partnership and Aerospace Technology Institute programme we support industry to increase supply chain productivity, competitiveness, innovation and exports. In defence, we work with industry to develop campaigns which pursue a ten-year pipeline of global opportunities. In 2023 the UK won £14.5bn defence orders; and in 2024 exported £23bn of domestically produced aerospace goods.

The Industrial Strategy will set out our further support for these sectors.

Promoting equal opportunities for women is a key part of this Government's Plan for Change, ensuring fair access to the best jobs. To that end, the Department for Business and Trade sponsors the FTSE Women Leaders Review, which collaborates with the UK's top public and private companies to achieve at least 40% representation of women on boards and at senior management levels.

The 2025 report evidences real progress in representation of women leaders across the top of UK businesses. The Government will continue to work with UK business and the Review to ensure the continuation of this promising momentum.

We work with local and combined authorities to promote the most significant investment opportunities, by providing compelling products for use by the department’s UK and international teams.

With the expanded Office for Investment, we will build further on this approach, working in partnership, to turn the Industrial Strategy and regional growth plans into a clear, commercially attractive pipeline of investment opportunities. We are piloting an enhanced way of supporting transformational local projects, connecting them with specialist support or expertise from across government to develop opportunities at scale and with commercial credibility to pull in large scale investment.

Official Statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbt-inward-investment-results-2023-to-2024 show 13 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects landed in Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) in 2023-24. This includes single site and multiple site projects. It was not possible to publish the number of new jobs created due to confidentiality issues. Statistics are not published at Local Authority level due to confidentiality concerns, but Milton Keynes is within South East Midlands LEP where 38 FDI projects landed and 3,010 jobs were created in 2023-24. The estimated economic impact of FDI projects is only published at a UK level.

Official Statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbt-inward-investment-results-2023-to-2024 show 13 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects landed in Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) in 2023-24. This includes single site and multiple site projects. It was not possible to publish the number of new jobs created due to confidentiality issues. Statistics are not published at Local Authority level due to confidentiality concerns, but Milton Keynes is within South East Midlands LEP where 38 FDI projects landed and 3,010 jobs were created in 2023-24. The estimated economic impact of FDI projects is only published at a UK level.

Investment is at the heart of the government’s growth mission, increasing the number of good, well-skilled jobs and improving productivity across the country. Foreign direct investment is one part of this and can support domestic businesses directly through supply chains and indirectly through spillover benefits. The new Office for Investment will work closely with all businesses to increase facilitation of investment from UK and overseas businesses.

Previous research in 2021 by DBT found that on average a £1 million FDI project into Great Britain leads to a net increase in national levels of GVA of around £98,000 and a net increase in employment.

This government is working to advance equality of access to start-up opportunities irrespective of gender or race. Everyone who can and wants to set up a small business should have access to support to do so, whether through direct government support or through programmes delivered by mayors and other institutions. Ensuring this support can be accessed by all is key to the government’s mission to secure economic growth and boost productivity throughout the UK. All businesses can access support via, Help to Grow Management, Growth Hubs, and the British Business Bank.

The government’s Start Up Loans programme provides finance and mentoring support to founders, with 40% of loans going to women and 21% to people from ethnic minorities.

The government-backed and industry-led Invest in Women Taskforce is working to make entrepreneurship more accessible to women, so that 30% of all businesses are female-powered by 2030.

Start-up companies, including those founded by women and people from ethnic minorities, are essential to our economic success.

All businesses can access support through the Business Support Service, the gov.uk website, their local Growth Hub, and Help to Grow.

The Start Up Loans Company, part of the government backed British Business Bank, provides loans and mentoring to new entrepreneurs. Since 2012, over 69,000 loans have been made to women and founders from an ethnic minority background.

The Department for Business & Trade is leading and supporting on many initiatives that deliver the recommendations set out in the Harrington Review. This includes; developing the Industrial Strategy to drive long-term sustainable, inclusive and secure growth through securing investment into crucial sectors of the economy.

We are supporting HM Treasury to develop a National Wealth Fund to mobilise private capital and simplify investor access to financial support. We are supporting regional growth by working with local leaders to realise investment opportunities in every region of the UK, such as working with Mayors in England to develop Local Growth Plans.

The Office for Investment is a small joint unit between 10 Downing Street and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the department responsible for investment into the UK. It is a delivery-focused team whose strategic objectives are fully aligned with those of DBT. It was established to increase the UK’s chances of landing the most strategically important investments. It works alongside teams from DBT, the UK’s international network, and other departments, providing an additional level of support for a handful of high-value projects which are particularly complex and require cross-government convening to unblock barriers.

The service the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) offers is tailored to investors’ needs and the value of their projects. The Office for Investment (OfI) focuses on supporting a select number of the highest value investments. For lower value investments DBT provides support through Expand Your Business, an online portal designed to address the ‘information gap’ for foreign investors. The Government also works through the British Business Bank to improve access to investment for small and mid-sized businesses through targeted interventions. The Bank’s programmes support over £17 billion of finance to small and high-growth businesses, backing almost 64,000 businesses across the UK.

The Department for Business and Trade uses a range of metrics and data to review the performance of its investment promotion function, of which the Office for Investment is a part. These include internal evidence, for instance on the number of projects DBT has been involved in, the Gross Value Added, and the number of jobs created, as well as external evidence from various sources. During 2023-24 DBT supported the delivery of 1,018 FDI projects, creating 57,037 jobs and generating an estimated £5.8 billion GVA over the next three years. The department also supported over £7 billion in large capital investments and £0.86 billion in Venture Capital injections.

The Government’s international investment partnerships will be crucial for driving economic growth in the UK. The Office for Investment continues to work with teams in the Department for Business and Trade and other departments across government to amplify opportunities for collaboration and the pursuit of shared goals through these partnerships, where stability, predictability, and trust are key. The International Investment Summit on 14 October will be a significant next step to deliver this message to our existing and potential new partners.

To respond to global economic trends and increasing competition for future industries, the Government has announced a set of first steps to improve the UK’s attractiveness as an investment destination, including through driving planning reform and launching our new National Wealth Fund and GB Energy. The Office for Investment (OfI) helps to improve the competitiveness of the UK’s overall offer for investors through focused support for the most globally mobile investment projects.