Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and David Amess

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

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

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

First, I would like to update the House: unfortunately, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth will be unable to join us this morning due to a family illness.

Our young people provide an invaluable contribution to the UK economy—they are more than twice as likely to be entrepreneurs as their peers in France and Germany—and we are supporting them. The start-up loans programme has provided over £60 million in loans to 18 to 24-year-olds since 2012. To further realise young entrepreneurs’ potential, I have asked the Prince’s Trust to lead a review to identify the barriers that they face.

[Sir David Amess]

In 2017-18, recent graduates from the University of East Anglia set up 247 start-ups employing 1,015 people. Will my hon. Friend reassure me that the Government will continue to fund these schemes, as they mean so much to young people and help to create a vibrant economy?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Through our industrial strategy, we recognise the valuable contribution from the creation of spin-outs and start-ups by businesses from university. That is why we have committed to increasing higher education innovation funding from £160 million to £250 million per year by 2020-21. This will help to increase universities’ capacity to engage in commercialisation and work with business.