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 support small and medium-sized businesses in Gillingham and Rainham constituency.

Our Industrial Strategy aims to make Britain the best place to start and grow a business. Programmes operated by the Government-owned British Business Bank are currently supporting over £4.6bn of finance to over 70,000 SMEs.

GOV.UK, the Business Support Helpline and Growth Hubs provide access to advice and support who want to start their own business. The Kent and Medway Growth Hub has helped almost 5,000 small and medium-sized businesses. And since 2010, the number of small and medium-sized businesses in Kent and Medway has grown by over 11,000.

We are also investing £31 billion in the National Productivity Investment Fund until 2023 to improve physical and digital infrastructure, which will directly benefit small businesses.

As part of our approach to improving the business environment, which was set out within the Industrial Strategy White Paper, we are currently consulting on the actions that could be most effective in improving the productivity and growth of small and medium-sized businesses.

We are also spending up to £26.6 million on Business Basics and the industry-led Be the Business initiative and programme, to help SMEs take practical steps to improve their productivity by adopting best-practice management techniques and modern technologies.