Small Businesses: Yorkshire and the Humber
(asked on 9th July 2019) - 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 recent steps he has taken to support small businesses in (a) Yorkshire and the Humber and (b) Haltemprice and Howden constituency.
The Government is committed to supporting all entrepreneurs to start and grow a business. Through 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.
In addition to accessing national support available such as the Business Support Helpline (0300 456 3565) and advice given on www.gov.uk, small and medium sized enterprises in Yorkshire and the Humber can access business advice through their local Growth Hubs. Led and governed by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), Growth Hubs provide a free, impartial, ‘single point of contact’ to help businesses in the area identify and access the right support for them at the right time no matter their size or sector. The LEPs which cover Yorkshire and the Humber have self-reported that in FY2017-2018 their Growth Hubs supported over 12,000 businesses and helped over 900 individuals start a business.
The Humber LEP area is being supported with up to £83.4m of investment through the Regional Growth Fund, which includes £30m awarded to the Humber LEP for a business support programme. The Growing Places Fund is supporting business growth investment across the Humber with funding worth £8.8m. The Humber LEP’s ‘Growing the Humber’ business investment programme has supported the creation of over 2,800 jobs to date.
The Government-backed British Business Bank’s Start-Up Loans programme provides loans to entrepreneurs seeking to start and grow their own businesses. Since 2012, 5,482 loans have been issued in the Yorkshire and the Humber region, totalling over £45m, and with an average loan amount of £8,249. In the Haltemprice and Howden constituency, 103 loans have been issued, totalling £926,277 (as at end-June 2019).