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 businesses and entrepreneurs in (a) Copeland constituency and (b) the North West.

The Government is committed to supporting all entrepreneurs to start and grow a business, it is a key aspect of our ambitious Industrial Strategy. We want to make the UK the best place to start and grow a business, to create jobs and spread prosperity.

We already provide support to businesses through the www.gov.uk website. We also offer support through our Business Support Helpline (0300 456 3565). Last year we helped c.31,500 businesses, 65% were entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Businesses can also access local support through anyone of the 38 Growth Hubs across England which join up local and national business support. Details of Local Growth Hubs can be found on the following webpage: www.lepnetwork.net/growth-hubs

The Start-Up Loans programme, now part of the British Business Bank (BBB), has supported nearly 61,000 entrepreneurs with loans totalling over £468m, and was extended in the autumn budget to April 2021 to enable an additional 10,000 loans to be made.

BBB programmes are currently supporting £954,419 of finance for SMEs in Copeland across 23 businesses and £1,842,918,743 of finance for SMEs in the North West across 12,484 businesses (as at September 2018).

As of February 2019, since the BBB-owned Start-Up Loans programme launched, 24 loans have been made, totalling £256,600 in Copeland and 7,561 loans have been made totalling £56,967,713 in the North West.