Women Entrepreneurs

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your erudite chairmanship and beady eye this morning, Mr Robertson; you will ensure that all of us are well-served this morning.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing this debate. I know that this is a subject she is really passionate about. She has done a lot of research on it, which really shows in the insight she offers into it and the things that we can do about it.

I also want to put on record my interest in and support for the fact that there are a number of MPs here. May I venture to say to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), who sadly has now left Westminster Hall—

[Jim Shannon]

He will be back.

[Stella Creasy]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman will be back, because it is good to see male MPs supporting the idea that there is a gender gap that needs to be addressed. However, may I venture to say that that is not necessarily a concern because of his wife but because when 51% of the population are not fully utilised it is a concern for us all that we are missing out on the contribution that they could make? Frankly, sorting this issue out would help a lot of men, because it would help our economy, and therefore it perhaps has less to do with his wife and more to do with his constituents. It is because of them that he should be concerned about why we have such a gender gap. In particular, my hon. Friend set out well the particular gender gap that we see in the UK, because the situation is not the same in other countries, which should be very telling about what we can do in this country to address these issues.

A number of Members have already pointed out that there would be many more businesses if women were starting up businesses at the same rate as men. However, it is worth considering the situation in other countries. It is not only America that has a higher level of female entrepreneurship than the UK but countries around the world. Therefore, there is something happening in the UK. It is also worth noting that we have a higher rate of churn in the UK, so even when women start up businesses here they are failing more often than in other countries. Women entrepreneurs here are also less likely than elsewhere to attribute the closure of their business to business failure and more likely to cite personal reasons as one of the reasons why their businesses were not successful.

Why does this issue matter to us all? It is because equalising the labour market participation rates of men and women would boost the UK economy by an average 0.5 percentage points every year, with a potential gain of 10% of GDP by 2030. Given the recession that we have just gone through and given the fact that our recovery appears to be beginning to slow, getting more women into business and into leading more businesses would clearly make a tremendous difference to us all and our future economic position. Indeed, the Royal Bank of Scotland has calculated that boosting female entrepreneurship could deliver an extra £60 billion to the UK economy.

[Seema Malhotra]

As always, the shadow Minister is making an excellent speech. She raised the issue of female participation in the labour force and the important contribution to the economy that could be made by boosting the number of women entrepreneurs. Does she also see this situation as an opportunity for us to see women not only as entrepreneurs but as the employers of the future, who employ others and make changes as their businesses start to grow?

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend has pre-empted one of the points that I was going to make, namely that this issue is not just about women employing themselves. Indeed, all the evidence suggests that on the whole women’s businesses tend to be better at creating jobs than men’s businesses, because women’s businesses are generally more labour-intensive than men’s businesses. Again, I go back to my initial theme that it would do men, and not just women themselves, a big favour if we could get more women into business.

Therefore, it is worth asking ourselves why we are not seeing that kind of progression in the UK, given that we need it within our economy to make it more stable. My hon. Friend set out the admirable record of the previous Government in bringing forward this agenda and I am very proud of the previous Government for making women’s business a priority for all, and not just for women. However, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) rightly said, we have all seen that the progress on this issue has been too slow. Since 2008, the percentage of small and medium-sized enterprises run by women in this country has only gone from 14% of the total number of SMEs to 20%, which is a 6 percentage point increase in that time period. That is simply not good enough. As a result, women own only about one business in five in this country. When we compare that with America, where women are twice as likely to be entrepreneurially active as women in the UK, even though the rates of entrepreneurship for men are very similar for both countries, that tells us the problem that we face here.

In that same time—the period since 2008—it is also worth reflecting on just how quickly women’s employment in and of itself has changed. Not only have women been hit disproportionately hard by the Government cuts but in terms of unemployment. Therefore, it is not a surprise that in the boom in self-employment that we have seen in this country in the last five or six years, women have accounted for much of that growth. Women account for under a third of those who are in self-employment in our country, but more than half of the increase in self-employment since 2008 has been among women. In fact, between 2008 and 2011 women accounted for an unprecedented 80% of the new self-employed people within our economy, which means about 300,000 more women going into self-employment since the economic downturn.

What sort of businesses might those new businesses be? I am sorry to see that the Members from Northern Ireland in Westminster Hall have now shrunk down to one—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—but I hope that it is a case of quality not quantity. The hon. Gentleman himself talked about online shopping and women using their interest in that to drive business. What we have certainly seen is a boom in the internet economy and the opportunity not so much to shop online as to sell online; we have certainly seen that women have been taking advantage of that opportunity. I would wager that that is not so much because of women’s interest in shopping but because of the reduction in barriers to entrepreneurship that online activity creates. The fact that now someone needs only a few hundred pounds to set up a business rather than several thousand pounds, because it is possible to sell online, changes our economy in substantial ways. Indeed, online businesses have accounted for almost a quarter of total UK growth in recent years, and much of that has been driven by new entrants into the market, including women benefiting from the fact that they can combine work around some of their other commitments to get into that online business.

[Seema Malhotra]

The shadow Minister is making an excellent point and I am reminded of the excellent phrase in the book, “A Woman’s Place is in the Boardroom”, by Peninah Thomson, in which she talked about the “customer being queen”, because of the fact that women are responsible for more than 80% of retail purchases, or decisions about them. Does my hon. Friend agree that that highlights even further the need to focus on women and what they can bring to our economy through setting up enterprises? The fact is that when women make decisions about what to purchase for themselves and their families, they understand the market so much more than men, and when they come forward and start businesses they are often filling niches and going on—just as Anita Roddick did with the Body Shop—to be hugely successful.

[Stella Creasy]

Again, my hon. Friend shows her experience in this area. What we are certainly seeing is that women who start businesses tend to bring forward new products, as opposed to men who start businesses, who tend to bring forward competitor products. So women are certainly driving innovation.

My point in referring to the online economy is to set on the record that Labour thinks this issue is less about women bringing their previous experience of purchasing to business so much as their ability to use the opportunity that online behaviour offers to open up markets to people. When someone is bringing a new creative product to the market, having a window that sells to millions of people rather than perhaps having a window just in their local high street opens up the potential for greater success, and it is important that we consider that and ask ourselves how, for example, we can support more women to learn skills, such as coding, to be able to sell online.

A number of Members today have obviously focused on women themselves and what might be stopping them from getting into business. Certainly, one of the issues that people have come up with is child care. So let us be very clear that there probably is an issue around child care and helping women to be able to juggle, which suggests men are holding women back, because, after all, it takes two to have a baby. One thing that I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on is how we can make men hold up their part of the bargain in looking after children, so that their wives can be the successful entrepreneurs that they want to be.

Labour’s child care proposals will probably help a lot of women entrepreneurs. For example, there is our proposal to increase the number of hours of free child care that are available. With child care costs rising by up to 30%, there could be many parents—for example, the women who want to be the next Anita Roddick or Laura Tenison—who find their ability to be entrepreneurial being hampered as a result of this Government, because they find they cannot afford the child care necessary for them to spend the time setting up a business.

Today, therefore, I will set out four areas that I would like to hear the Government’s response about. They are less to do with women and more to do with the environment that we are asking women entrepreneurs to enter.













First, hon. Members talked about finance. Clearly, finance matters. The evidence shows us that women start businesses undercapitalised, and with not just less finance, but fewer human resources and less social capital. That puts them at a disadvantage by comparison with their male counterparts. Not having the same level of resource is a factor in respect of confidence and risk-aversion among female entrepreneurs. It is important to say that it is not always a bad thing that women are risk-averse, but we should recognise it when they do not have the same resources, and so cannot take the same risks, as their male counterparts. We must consider how to ensure that they have access to more resources, rather than encouraging them to take more risks, and we should recognise that their lack of confidence may not be misplaced and that they might not have the resources to succeed.

How much of a barrier is finance? Some 10% of female entrepreneurs say that access to finance is their only barrier to entrepreneurship, and that it is a particular challenge in respect of expanding in the way they would like to. Again, that appears to be a bigger problem in the UK than in other countries, particularly in Europe. Women in Europe are much more likely to be able to access finance to start and run their businesses than their UK counterparts. Some 20% of women in the UK have tried to get money to start a business but have been turned down, compared with only 11% of European female entrepreneurs.

My hon. Friend talked about the Aspire fund, which was set up in 2008 to try to deal with this challenge and ensure that there was a dedicated pot of money to support women in business. As she said, as of last year only £4.7 million of the £12 million had been invested. It is worth comparing that with other forms of start-up finance backed by the Government to see what the difference is. For example, in the same period, the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, set up to provide assistance to small businesses with an annual turnover of less than £41 million, has offered £2.6 billion, and £2.3 billion has been drawn down. The regional growth fund, which matches private finance with public assistance, has awarded £2.6 billion, of which £1.15 billion has been drawn down. There is a differential. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s view on why the Aspire fund has not been as successful in promoting and supporting women’s businesses as some other start-up funds.

Research by Strathclyde university states that decisions regarding women and finance are based on the interaction between women, who may lack confidence—perhaps because they recognise that they do not have the same level of resource to start a business—and those offering them finance, who may have a certain attitude and approach. There is an interesting challenge for us: if we can change the attitudes of those offering finance—for example, through the Aspire fund—will more women go into business?

Secondly, we have to acknowledge the issue of confidence. I challenge slightly the vicious circle that the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned: he said that dedicated schemes for women could undermine their confidence. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the other way of looking at that is that it recognises that they are a priority. Dedicated schemes, with mentoring and support for women, recognising that there is a gap, and bringing other women forward are helpful and supportive.

Some 38% of women in the UK, compared with just 3% of women in Europe, take advice from Government business support projects. Women are more likely to use all forms of business support than men, whether public or private, and are more likely to access support from professional services. It is important that mentoring schemes exist. It matters that other women are in business, because you cannot be what you cannot see. It is a simple principle, but seeing other women being successful in business offers a road map for women, showing them how they could be successful.

I pay tribute, as other hon. Members have, to a women’s business forum in my constituency. I venture to say that that forum, run by the amazing Jo Sealy, is more successful than our general business forum.

[Jim Shannon]

I just want to go back one sentence, with the hon. Lady’s permission, and talk about confidence. I was saying that we all have different natures. I have a different nature from other gentlemen in this Chamber, and the hon. Lady is different from other ladies here. It is important, when encouraging ladies to take a job up or move forward with their idea for entrepreneurship, that it is done in such a way that their confidence is encouraged. It is not that what is happening is not right; it is right for some, but perhaps not right for all.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. My point is that he was querying whether a gendered approach to mentoring might not be counter-productive. I wanted to reassure him that such an approach is important for a lot of women, because it shows them a road map of where they could get to.

I also pay tribute to Simone Roche of Women 1st, Kate Hardcastle of Insight with Passion, Bev Hurley of Enterprising Women, Heather Jackson of An Inspirational Journey, and Margaret Wood of Opportunity Plus, who supports older women entrepreneurs. There are a number of schemes out there, and what they all have in common is that they were set up by women volunteering. Some of them have become social enterprises. I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston that, over the last couple of years, the work to support women doing that work has been downgraded. My second question for the Minister is: does he share our concern and think there should be a renewed effort to support and prioritise those mentoring networks, not just in local enterprise partnerships?

My hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Feltham and Heston is a fan of the work of the national Women’s Business Council, which was set up for a year as an independent body. Does the Minister think there is a case for making that a perpetual scheme and for considering how it could support mentoring, using and drawing on the experience there?

Thirdly, with regard to women finding it hard to see other women whom they might aspire to be, does the Minister share my disappointment and concern about the slow pace of progress in getting women into leadership positions in business across the piece? He must be disappointed with the slow pace of change, given the diversity dividend that comes from getting more women into boardrooms. He must also share the disappointment of his colleague, the Minister for Business and Enterprise, about the decisions of many businesses to appoint women to non-executive positions. The vast majority of women who have gone into leadership positions on business boards during the past couple of years have simply been appointed as non-execs and have not been in decision-making positions. I know that the Minister will be worried about that unacceptable situation, because it sends a message to women entrepreneurs that there are not women to trade with. Does he think that there is now a case for getting on with looking at what quotas could offer us, in respect of non-exec and exec positions, and the way that businesses are working with women?

My final questions to the Minister are about women to trade with. There is a slow pace of change when it comes to not just women in boardrooms and in entrepreneurship, but women to trade with. In a world economy, the way our businesses work with other businesses could provide huge opportunities for women entrepreneurs, but at the moment, women-owned businesses are winning less than 5% of corporate and public sector contracts.

The Government’s adviser has called for the Government to collect data on diversity in procurement processes, and said that the pre-qualification questionnaire should ask about women-owned business. Is the Minister concerned that the talk about removing the pre-qualification questionnaire for contracts smaller than €250,000 may mean that we will not see that level of engagement with the question of whether the Government are selling to women and doing all they can, through their own supply chain, to promote women’s business?

Although UK Trade & Investment measures women-led firms that export, we do not measure women being sold to and traded with in our economy. The Government have dismissed the idea of having a quota for tenders and the idea of measuring the number of women being sold to, although clearly that would help us understand the scale of the challenge and whether the Government are doing what they can. If the Minister wants insight into what difference that could make, he should look no further than that socialist utopia, the United States of America, where some 30% of all businesses are majority female-owned and the number of women-owned businesses continues to grow at twice the rate of all US firms. Women are increasing their economic clout and driving the American recovery. That is not happening by accident; it is being driven by the US Government’s deliberate choice. The USA Women’s Business Ownership Act 1988 put in place long-term infrastructure to support women’s enterprise development. The quotas and targets set by the US Government for women in their supply chain are changing the behaviour of companies in America.

In 1994, the federal Government established a 5% spending goal for federal agencies to encourage contracting with women-owned small businesses. That target has not yet been met, but it is almost being met and it is making a massive difference to women entrepreneurs in America. Indeed, it is changing the debate not just in the public sector in America, but in the private sector. Companies such as Walmart—again, not perhaps seen as a socialist leader, if the Minister is worried about that—have introduced “women-owned” labels since last year, allowing consumers to clearly identify products created by women-led businesses and buy accordingly. That company sees a commercial interest in this.

The Minister may be worried that I am talking straight away about bringing in a direct quota for selling to women. I recognise that first and foremost we have to ask the question, so will the Minister commit the Government to asking, in the public sector, about selling to women and to starting to monitor just how women’s businesses are being traded with in this country? Through that, we can understand the gaps in the industry. Perhaps there is a role in that for the Women’s Business Council and that dedicated lead on women’s entrepreneurship and business that my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston set out so clearly as being required.

Ultimately, if we want to give women confidence that their businesses will be supported, that they will be successful and that we can bridge the confidence gap, we have to show that the issue is a priority. The Opposition are committed to that; I hope that the Minister will show a similar commitment, so that we can all benefit from the increase in economic activity and productivity that bringing more women into the UK economy would offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

The process of evaluating the BIS portals has been taking place only in the past few months. Perhaps I could come back to the hon. Lady with the latest details of that assessment.

[Stella Creasy]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Freeman]

If I can just finish this section of my speech, I will happily give way.

We have invested in the women’s start-up project to provide opportunities for young women studying in the creative industries and the leisure and tourism sectors to start their own businesses. This pilot project, in partnership with Young Enterprise, will see the Government provide funding of up to £50,000 for teams of young women aged 19 to 24 studying at undergraduate level to set up and run their own businesses. We have also provided £2 million for small grants of up to £500 for those wishing to set up new child care businesses—help with child care is of course a major part of support, and I will say more about that in a moment. In the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced that that scheme would be extended until March 2016, with a further £2 million made available for next year.

As a number of colleagues have mentioned, we have provided a £1 million women and broadband challenge fund to help women to move their business online and take advantage of superfast broadband. Sixteen local authorities have been awarded a grant to support actions to encourage women’s enterprise in areas where superfast broadband is being deployed. I want to touch on the particular challenge faced by women entrepreneurs in rural areas such as my own.

[Stella Creasy]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Freeman]

I will just finish my point, then I will give way.

The Government are actively addressing a number of additional barriers for women in rural areas. We have provided £1.6 million to support women’s start-ups in rural areas, including improved access to transport links, virtual assistants for those in the most remote areas, online help, and local business support through mentoring, skills training and networking.

[Stella Creasy]

Before the Minister moves on from discussing Government support to women’s business, I want to press him on the Aspire fund—I hope that he has just received a note on it from his officials. He mentioned a number of different pots of money that are being given out to support women in business in various ways—for example, the broadband challenge. The Aspire fund was set up with £12 million to support high-growth women-owned ventures, but six years on, only £4.7 million has been invested. Will he say more about why that is the case and what the Government are doing to reduce the gap? If that money is there to support women’s business, surely we should ensure that it gets to women in business.

[George Freeman]

With her typical prescience, the hon. Lady anticipates the next paragraph of my speech. We recognise that the sector needs particular support, which is why we are so keen on the Aspire fund, which makes equity investments of between £100,000 and £1 million on a co-investment basis and is designed to help female-led businesses that aim to grow. The fund invested £1.3 million and supported £5.5 million of investment in 2013-14, and it has a total of £12.5 million to invest.

It is worth remembering that the fund was not intended to fund a large number of businesses; it is there as a beacon project to support women-only businesses and catalyse the sector. I am delighted that we have also made additional investment available to businesses led by women, as well as those led by men, through the £100 million business angel co-investment fund. We must not forget that although we are catalysing and driving women-only entrepreneurs, the whole range of business support mechanisms we have put in place—including the seed investment enterprise scheme and the expanded enterprise investment scheme—are all available to women entrepreneurs.

[Stella Creasy]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[George Freeman]

I just want to finish this point about funding.

Without the right funding, it would be hard for anyone to realise the potential of their ideas. The Aspire fund is one of a much larger range of measures. Women are also benefiting from the full range of start-up loans and the new enterprise allowance. More than 25,000 loans worth more than £160 million have now been made, with 37% going to women. The 25,000th loan was given to a female entrepreneur.

To help more parents to start their own business, from autumn 2015 tax-free child care will be available to nearly 2 million households to help with the cost of child care. That will enable more parents to go to work and, unlike the current scheme—employer-supported child care—it will be available to self-employed parents.

[Stella Creasy]

There is a £7 million gap between the £12 million that has been made available for women’s businesses and the money that has actually been drawn down. I take the Minister’s point, and I am not suggesting that that is the only funding available for women entrepreneurs, but compared with other Government-led schemes, there is a substantial disparity. Why does he think that is? Why has the Aspire fund not been able to lend at the same rate as the other available start-up funds? Will he commit the Government to monitoring across the piece the gender of those to whom they are lending through start-up schemes? The Government have not always monitored that, but they must do so to truly understand what we might have to change about finance for women to ensure that they all get the support that they need.

[George Freeman]

It is important to realise that we do not want the investment funds that take equity stakes simply to shovel the money out of the door irrespective of the quality of the bids. The decisions have to be based on proper investment criteria, and it is not for me or the hon. Lady to second-guess such judgments. I am pleased to see that after an initial period during which the rate of investment was slower, it has picked up. We are actively monitoring and supporting the fund, and our ambition is for it to be spent and invested, but it is important that we send a signal that the money is going into high-quality business propositions.

As we have all acknowledged this morning, there is a challenge in trying to observe the wider cultural point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). He said that we must promote world-class, aspirational, high start-up businesses that are capable of receiving that sort of venture capital. It is not for us to signal that the money should be pumped out of the door irrespective of the quality of the bids. It is for the fund manager to ensure that they are picking the right investments.

I have tried to be generous in giving way, but time is running out, so I want to complete my remarks. For all the reasons I have outlined, and because we agreed that we must do more, in April 2014, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State appointed my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) to the role of women in enterprise champion, to promote the support available to women starting a business. In February, she presented her report on how the Government could boost support for female entrepreneurs, and we agree with much of the thinking and analysis it contains. I cannot be expected to commit the Government to agree with every single one of the recommendations, but we are actively looking at them and working on an implementation plan.

I want to pick up on some of the comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge focused in particular on science and start-up companies. I join him in paying tribute to the people in the high-tech and life sciences sector, which we both know well from Cambridge, and to entrepreneurs such as Julie Deane of the Cambridge Satchel Company. He made a number of interesting points about cultural attitudes and the need to ensure that, in what can sometimes be the quite macho world of finance, the quality of women entrepreneurs and of women in science is properly recognised.

My hon. Friend also talked about the importance of getting schools better connected to businesses. We can all do something about that in our own constituencies. Tomorrow night, the Norfolk Way is launching our first innovation awards for Norfolk, linking up science teachers and students in schools with local businesses in the area. He made an important point about 8% of venture capital funding but 41% of crowdfunding going to women-led businesses. That sends a signal about the power of some of the new financing mechanisms to support women’s businesses. Although the Enterprise Research Centre has shown that there are no specific obstacles to access to finance for women, strong perceptions have a powerful effect, and that is something we need to monitor.

My hon. Friend made a particular point about STEM. Since 2009-10 the number of women starting engineering in manufacturing apprenticeships has increased threefold, which is a real success for the coalition’s apprenticeships policy in that we are getting more and more women in the STEM subjects. More action is necessary, but with the apprenticeship ambassadors STEMNET programme we are making progress. The Your Life “Call to Action”, part of the campaign launched by the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has brought together employers, educators and the professions to make concrete pledges to increase the number of women in engineering and technology. I am delighted that more than 200,000 organisations have now pledged to create in excess of 2,000 entry-level positions, including apprenticeships, graduate jobs and paid work experience posts, as well as action to support their female work force.

[George Freeman]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to another beacon project that is sending out such a powerful signal to girls and women about opportunities available to them. I am delighted, too, that we allocated a further £20 million in the engineering skills fund to help employers to tackle skills shortages in engineering, including to develop women engineers.

Finally, my hon. Friend made a point about enterprise education. I am delighted to confirm that we are working actively with schools, colleges and higher education institutions to encourage and promote entrepreneurial attitudes and skills training, as well as providing mentors and role models and improving access to finance support.

I want to deal with the questions about child care and women on boards. A number of colleagues asked about child care support. The Government have increased the number of funded hours of free child care from 12.5 to 15 hours a week for all three and four-year-olds, saving families an additional £425 a year per child. Since September 2014, we have funded an additional 15 hours a week of free child care for the 40% most disadvantaged two-year-olds, saving families £2,500 a year per child. We have also increased child tax credit well above inflation to £2,780 a year, which is £480 more a year than at the beginning of the Parliament. All families under universal credit will be able to receive 80% support for child care costs, which is up from 70% under the existing working tax credit system. The introduction of tax-free child care could also save a working family up to £2,000 a year per child. In addition, we have committed an extra £50 million to introduce a new early years pupil premium in 2015-16 to support the most disadvantaged three and four-year-olds to access Government-funded early education. That is important if we are to support our entrepreneurs and innovators in all walks of society and to ensure that entrepreneurship is not the preserve of the well-off.

Women on boards is an important subject. A lot of our entrepreneurial companies do well and go on to become substantial, significant companies quoted on the stock market. We are ensuring that, at that point, women continue in leadership roles. Following Lord Davies’s recommendations in the 2011 “Women on boards” report, the Government are committed to achieving the target he set for the end of 2015 of 25% of FTSE 100 boards being women. We also want to increase the number of women on FTSE 250 boards. The graph that I have in my hands shows a line slowly climbing from 2004 to 2011, but then turning sharply upwards, going from 12.5% of women on the boards of FTSE 100 companies to 20.7% at the end of 2014. We are making a real impact and we must continue to do so. I am delighted that now 22.8% of FTSE 100 board members are women and that women now account for 28% of FTSE 100 non-executive directorships and 8.5% of FTSE 100 executive directorships. There is much more to do, but we are making real progress.

[Stella Creasy]

Does the Minister share the view of his colleague, the Minister for Business and Enterprise, that it is unacceptable that boards are only appointing women to non-executive positions and that what we need therefore is a target not only for women on boards, but for women in decision-making positions? Also, will the Minister answer the questions about the Women’s Business Council and about the supply chain? It would be incredibly helpful to hear his response on those issues as well.

[George Freeman]

I do share the ambition and desire of my fellow BIS Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), to see a continuing increase in the rate of women being appointed to the boards of our top companies. The hon. Lady is right to highlight that we do not want women only to be in non-executive roles; they must be in executive roles as well. That is why I was saying that we are very much focused on that. We are pleased with the progress, but we need to go further—not, I hasten to add, because of a politically correct desire to hit some quota, but because women are talented and represent more than half of our work force. By not giving women fair representation in the leadership positions of our great companies, we deny those companies their talents. We are being hard-headed and not only concerned with social justice. It is in the interests of the country in every way. I am glad that we agree on that.

In closing, I want to return to the point with which I started. Many of the arguments used in the Chamber today relate to the economic contribution of women in entrepreneurship and start-up businesses and to the need to unleash the talents of women, because that is so important to our economy, but I want to highlight the importance of a small business and entrepreneurial economy to the wider stock of social capital and the ties that bind us. I am absolutely certain that if we are to rebalance our economy in the broadest sense, we need to create one in which small business not only contributes to economic success, but helps to bring communities together. Give me a deal between two small companies any day of the week and I will show people a deal that includes not only an economic deliverable, but a contribution to social capital and to building trust between communities. In many of our small towns, neighbourhoods, villages and inner-city communities, small businesses working together produce and deliver so much more than just economic growth. It is vital that we build women into that network as well.

For those reasons, I am delighted that, while there is not a shred of complacency in the Government, we are making real progress. We now have 1.45 million women enjoying the freedoms and flexibilities of self-employment, which is 42,000 more than in the previous quarter and 281,000 more than in 2010. We also have 900,000 SMEs run by women, more than at any time in our history. I am not complacent, but the Government are making progress.

[Stella Creasy]

Before the Minister closes, I wanted his response to two specific questions about the future of the Women’s Business Council and the supply chain. His own Government adviser on women-led businesses has suggested that the Government should monitor women in the procurement supply chain. Will he commit the Government to that, yes or no?

[George Freeman]

I have taken a lot of interventions and questions, but I will happily get back to the hon. Lady in detail. She made an interesting point about procurement. Through the work of the Cabinet Office, we are driving hard to ensure that we use every procurement power to support innovation throughout the economy. That is an important part of it and I will happily come back to her on it later.

The 900,000 SMEs run by women in our economy, the highest number in history, suggests that we are making real progress. I am not complacent for a moment, but we are on the right track.