Small Businesses: Ethnic Groups

(asked on 24th June 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the total GVA contributed by SMEs led by people from minority ethnic backgrounds in each year since 2014.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 2nd July 2021

The Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) does not assess the total GVA contributed by people from women led or minority ethnic group-led SMEs to the UK economy on an annual basis as this could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

BEIS monitors the number and proportion of majority women-led SMEs and minority ethnic group-led SMEs in the UK in the annual Longitudinal Small Business Survey, however the survey does not include information on the GVA contributed by these firms.

Total turnover of SMEs is published in BEIS’s annual Business Population Estimates for the UK, however data on turnover by majority women-led SMEs and minority ethnic group-led SMEs is not available.

It was estimated by BIS in 2015 that in the UK, women-led SMEs contribute about £85 billion to economic output and minority ethnic group-led SMEs contribute about £30 billion[1].

[1] BIS, Contribution of women-led and MEG-led businesses to the UK non-financial economy, 2015, pg. 3.

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