Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help SMEs to increase employment opportunities.

We are helping SMEs grow and employ more people through our largest ever injection of capital into the British Business Bank. Over the next five years, the British Business Bank will increase annual deployment by two-thirds, aiming to unlock around £26 billion of private capital alongside £13 billion in public funding, and enable up to an additional £10 billion in small business lending through guarantees.

The Government protected the smallest businesses from the changes to Employer National Insurance Contributions by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. This means that this tax year, 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all, and more than half of all employers will either gain or will see no change.

At Autumn Budget 2025, we announced that we are supporting SMEs by changing the rules to fully fund SME apprenticeships training costs for eligible people under the age of 25.