Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a co‑investment fund with diverse angel investors.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The British Business Bank's Angel Co-Fund programme already invests alongside syndicates of Business Angels. Every £1 invested by the Angel Co-Fund has leveraged around £5 from Angel syndicates.
The Bank is also expanding its Angel Syndicate Programme to support diverse Angel networks. The programme's pilot engaged 185 new Angel investors, of whom 176 were female and 9 were male. Since launch of this pilot programme in 2023, the Bank has completed 29 investment deals worth £18.4 million.
Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to ensure that support programmes provide meaningful access to all types of finance, as well as investment education and readiness support, such as training, mentoring, and guidance, for female founders in all regions.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Backing women-led businesses across the regions is a priority for this government. To tackle access to finance, the government-backed Invest in Women Taskforce has secured commitments of £635 million to be invested in women-led businesses across the UK. The British Business Bank has delivered over 118,000 loans totalling more than £1.1 billion through its Start Up Loans programme, with 40% going to female founders.
UK Export Finance launched its new Female Founder Accelerator in January 2026 in partnership with Lifted Ventures. This will include workshops, mentoring and coaching to equip female founders with the support to scale internationally with confidence.
Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he is taking steps to (a) monitor and (b) report on the gender investment gap, such as tracking year‑on‑year venture capital and angel investment into female‑founded companies; and whether targets or timelines have been set by his Department for improvement in this area.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business and Trade tracks year-on-year venture capital and angel investment in women-led businesses through its Investing in Women Code, a partnership between government, trade associations in the finance sector, and their members. Starting with 12 signatories in 2019, the Investing in Women Code now has over 300 finance providers signed up, including most major UK banks and Venture Capital funds.
Signatories to the Code report gender-disaggregated data on an annual basis for publication. Investing in Women Code reports demonstrate that Code signatories perform significantly better than the market average as regards investment in female founders.