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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to promote entrepreneurship and start-ups by means of the Government's Industrial Strategy.

Our Industrial Strategy sets out our aim to make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business.

We are ranked top 10 in the world for doing business by the World Economic Forum and World Bank and amongst the very best in Europe. But as the Patient Capital Review identified, we could do better in the longer-term process of building up successful businesses to reach large-scale and as the Scale-Up Taskforce has highlighted, more can be done to increase the number of businesses that achieve their full potential.

So as part of the Industrial Strategy, we have an action plan to unlock over £20bn of investment in high potential businesses, including through establishing a new £2.5bn Patient Capital investment fund incubated within the Government owned British Business Bank (BBB). The BBB, through its Start Up Loans programme, has lent over £410m to more than 55,000 entrepreneurs across the UK to start their own businesses. The New Enterprise Allowance Scheme from the Department of Work and Pensions also provides money and support to help people receiving certain benefits to start their own business.

Through the Industrial Strategy we are continuing to invest in 38 Growth Hubs across England alongside the Business Support Helpline. Business support is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All businesses can access core services, information and guidance on starting up and running a business, as well as their statutory rights and obligations, on GOV.UK.

More widely, the Small Business Commissioner has been launched with the purpose to assist small businesses to prevent and resolve late payment issues with their larger business customers. And we are opening up public procurement to SMEs, with a commitment to one pound in every three of central government procurement spend going to SMEs by (directly or via the supply chain) 2022.

We will also drive change through the biggest increase in public investment in R&D in our history, raising total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. Finally, we will support businesses to access international markets. This means driving up exports by the Government and private sector including identifying smaller businesses with the potential to succeed and grow as exporters.