Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps is she taking to speed up the approval process for (a) St Helens Chamber, which is already an approved provider for her Department and (b) other kickstarter gateways.

All applications for funding from the Department for Work & Pensions’ Kickstart Scheme are assessed according to the same criteria and are subject to the same tests of due diligence. We anticipate applications to take 4 weeks although they can take longer. We anticipate that the time taken to process applications will reduce as the scheme is rolled out.