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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions his Department has had with the Scottish Government on strategic initiatives to support small businesses in Scotland; and what the agreed steps to be taken were at those discussions.

As set out in my responses to PQ 411 and PQ 2586 the UK and Scottish Governments have been in discussion at both ministerial and official levels.

Business support in Scotland is largely devolved however, the department engages with all the devolved regions on a number of initiatives aimed at supporting small businesses. Government programmes, backed by the British Business Bank (BBB), the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme (EFGS) and Innovate UK are investing over £700m to support around 4,500 Scottish companies including: -

• BBB programmes are currently facilitating approximately £405m of finance in Scotland.
• Over 2,600 loans totalling over £15m via the Start-Up Loans programme. The Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme is currently facilitating over £61m of finance to 700 businesses in Scotland.
• The Investment Programme is currently facilitating over £214m of finance to over 1,000 businesses.
• Innovate UK is committed to support some 206 innovation projects and to invest £28.8m.