Female Entrepreneurship

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to implement the recommendations of The Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, published on 8 March.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government responded to the Rose review by immediately setting out a new, ambitious target to increase female entrepreneurship by half by 2030, and making new commitments to help drive more funding to women starting and growing businesses. Alison Rose is working with private sector partners to take forward the recommendations of the review, and will update all in due course.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, women run businesses better than men. The Rose report, in which that is mentioned, shows that some £250 billion would be added to the UK Exchequer were it to be followed rigorously. Given that, what is being done to help women with childcare, and with increasing business networks? Finally, given that women have extreme prowess in speaking languages, what is being done in this post-Brexit world to ensure maximum use of women in speaking languages to feed and help British business?

[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.