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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to support small businesses in towns and small cities.

Through our ambitious, modern Industrial Strategy we are working to make the UK the best place to start and grow a business. We are committed to ensuring all small businesses have access to the advice and support they need to succeed to start, grow, and scale their businesses.

All businesses can access core services, information and guidance on starting up and running a business, as well as their statutory rights and obligations, on our GOV.UK sites and www.gov.uk/browse/business. The Business Finance and Support Finder tool on the website provides information on how to access a wide range of Government-backed financial support for start-up businesses, such as funding and grant schemes.

The Business Support Helpline forms a key part of the government’s offer to SMEs in England, providing trusted and joined-up information and sign-posting businesses to relevant sources of support. The Helpline number is 0300 456 3565. In 2018, it helped 31,500 businesses, of which 65% were entrepreneurs and start-ups.

An integral part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy is at local level, working to develop prosperous communities across the UK. For example, the Government is providing help to local businesses to create more highly skilled jobs through Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

The Government’s commitment to work with all LEPs and Mayoral Combined Authorities in England to develop Local Industrial Strategies. These are locally led and developed in partnership with Government, setting out clearly defined priorities for how cities, towns and rural areas will make the most of their distinctive strengths and better coordinate economic policy at the local level.

Earlier this year we published the first Local Industrial Strategies in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester. We aim to agree Strategies with all local areas in 2020.

In addition, the Government backed British Business Bank’s programmes are currently supporting over £6.6 billion of finance to over 89,000 SMEs. The Start-Up Loans programme, now part of the British Business Bank, has delivered nearly 65,000 loans totalling almost £511m (as at end-June 2019). It was extended in the autumn budget to April 2021 to enable an additional 10,000 loans to be made to entrepreneurs.