Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make his policy to require venture capital firms to (a) record and (b) publish the diversity of founders receiving investment.

The Department is working to improve access to finance for diverse founders. An example of one initiative is the Investing in Women Code.

It was established in 2019 as a recommendation of the Alison Rose Review to increase transparency and data reporting on gender in the investment landscape. It is a commitment to support the advancement of women entrepreneurs in the UK by improving their access to the tools, resources and finance they need to achieve their goals. Signatories to the Code are voluntary, and data is published on an annual basis on the GOV.UK website.

In February 2025, a roundtable discussion was held with the finance industry, including Venture Capital representatives, to address access to finance issues for ethnic minority founders. We are exploring how best to gather and monitor the impact of having better ethnicity data.