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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government plans to take to increase access to (a) finance, (b) infrastructure and (c) skills for regional companies to ensure their competitiveness.

Our industrial strategy will build an economy that supports growth across the whole country and the competitiveness of UK businesses.

The British Business Bank programmes are supporting £3.4bn of finance to over 56K smaller businesses, and £1.8 billion from the Local Growth Fund has been allocated for a new set of Growth Deals between Government and Local Enterprise Partnerships.

An increase in central government’s investment in economic infrastructure to £22 billion/year by 2021; more than a 50% increase compared to this year to unlock growth in all parts of the country.

We are committed to a strong skills system that can help improve everyone’s earning power and support our businesses to grow. We’ve announced ambitious reforms to our technical education system that will invest over £500m per year, with an additional £170m to create Institutes of Technology in every region to deliver technical skills in STEM subjects. We will also be setting up Skills Advisory Panels that bring together local employers, colleges and universities, and Local Enterprise Partnerships to identify and deliver local skills needs.