Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he plans to take through proposals in the Levelling Up White Paper to assist ethnic minority business owners.

The Government's levelling up missions will spread economic opportunity and support businesses to fulfil their potential through investment in R&D, skills, connectivity, and business finance across the country.

The Levelling Up White Paper drew on the findings of the independent Commission for Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED), which emphasised that geography is a key factor affecting equality of opportunity and social mobility, and geographical and ethnicity-related factors are closely interrelated. In action 56 of the Government’s response to CRED, the Inclusive Britain report, the Government committed to support HSBC to develop and launch a pilot for a competition-based, entrepreneur support programme in spring 2022

By reducing spatial disparities across the UK, particularly in the places where they are most stark, the plans set out in the Levelling Up White Paper will improve the lives of groups with the worst outcomes, complementing and supporting our wider work to tackle race and ethnic disparities.