Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much financial support his Department provided to help people start up businesses in 2017.

Our Industrial Strategy aims to make Britain the best place to start and grow a business. Programmes operated by the government-backed British Business Bank (BBB) are supporting £4 billion of finance to over 65,000 smaller businesses (as at end Sept 2017).

This includes funding from the Start Up Loans programme which made 8,551 loans in the 2017-18 Financial Year, totalling £104m. Since its inception in 2012, the Start Up Loans programme has lent over £400m, making over 54,000 loans. We also offer support for SMEs across a broad range of sectors to tackle barriers to growth.

The Government also provides support to start-up businesses across England through GOV.UK and the Business Support Helpline. In addition, in 2017-2018 we have provided £12m of funding to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to enable them to provide tailored support and advice to start-ups and existing businesses through their network of Growth Hubs.