Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how the Office for Investment will assess the potential impact of foreign direct investment on domestic businesses in key sectors.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many jobs were created in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire as a result of foreign direct investment in the last year.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how the Office for Investment plans to engage with local authorities and combined authorities to (a) identify and (b) promote investment opportunities.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what the estimated economic impact of foreign direct investment projects in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire has been in the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help encourage (a) women and (b) people from ethnic minorities to found start-up companies.
Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps the Office for Investment has taken to build and strengthen international partnerships that promote inward investment to the UK.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps the Office for Investment is taking in response to global economic trends to maintain the attractiveness of the UK as an investment destination.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what metrics his Department uses to assess the performance of the Office for Investment; and how it has performed against those metrics in the last year.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what initiatives the Office for Investment has introduced to attract investment in small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his Department plans to review the Office for Investment's strategy.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
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.