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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps she has taken to support (a) women and (b) people from ethnic minorities that want to set up businesses.

The UK is one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business. Government is committed to supporting all entrepreneurs, whatever their background, to have the opportunity to make their business ideas a reality.

We provide support to all entrepreneurs to set up businesses through our online services on GOV.UK, the Business Support Helpline, and the network of 38 local Growth Hubs across England. In 2018, 47% of the Business Support Helpline’s callers were women.

We have been working closely with HM Treasury and industry to implement the eight initiatives from the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, to tackle the barriers faced by women when starting and scaling a business. We have set an ambition to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030 – equivalent to an additional 600,000 female entrepreneurs.

The British Business Bank’s Start-Up Loans Programme provides funding and intensive support to new entrepreneurs, and has delivered over 67,000 loans, worth over £534m since it began in 2012 (as at end-September 2019). 40% of Start Up Loans have gone to women – worth over £198m. 20% of Start Up Loans have gone to BAME entrepreneurs – worth over £100m.

BEIS has also launched an independent review into Young Entrepreneurship, led by the Prince’s Trust, that seeks to better understand young entrepreneurs, including young female and ethnic minority entrepreneurs, the specific barriers and opportunities they face – such as access to finance, and networks - and what more can be done to support them to start and grow a business.