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 is taking to promote innovation in small businesses.

We are committed to ensuring that Britain is the best place in Europe to innovate, patent new ideas and start and grow a business. Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, funds business-led innovation. Its aims include helping high-growth potential small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) become high-growth mid-sized companies. Its core budget is £567 million in 2016/17. Around 60% of Innovate UK’s grant funding goes to SMEs. We are supporting more companies to do research and development through the R&D Tax Credits scheme. In 2014/15 over 18,600 claims were made under the SME scheme, a 16% increase from 2013/14.