Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Advice and support is available to businesses right across the UK, but it remains the case that the best certainty that business can have is to know that the agreement that has been reached with the European Union, which rules out no deal and involves a substantial transition period, will be approved next week in the House of Commons. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support that.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

15. What steps his Department has taken to promote youth entrepreneurship.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department has taken to promote youth entrepreneurship.

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Chris Skidmore)]

A total of 390,000 18 to 24-year olds are involved in starting businesses in the UK, and the British Business Bank has provided £52 million in start-up loans to young people since 2012. In December we launched a youth engagement programme, including a celebration of UK science, technology, engineering and maths projects and an industrial strategy competition to inspire 13 to 19-year-olds.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I welcome that and I welcome the start-up loans scheme, which has helped a lot of young entrepreneurs, but will the Minister talk with his counterparts in the Department for Education to see how we can embed entrepreneurship and life skills in business into the school curriculum?

[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. Indeed, as a Minister also in the Department for Education, I work with that Department and understand the importance of ensuring that young people develop entrepreneurial skills. Our careers strategy launched in 2017 places a strong emphasis on our interaction with entrepreneurs. We have connected more than 2,000 schools and colleges with enterprise advisers, launched a £2.5 million investment fund to support employer encounters, and created 20 new career hubs.