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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to paragraph 3.36 of the Autumn Statement 2016, if his Department will support firms specialising (a) in video and mobile game development and (b) on artificial intelligence, data analytics and virtual reality.

At the Autumn Statement 2016, the British Business Bank was provided with £400m of additional funding to unlock up to £1 billion of new investment in innovative firms planning to scale up.

This will primarily be achieved by broadening the mandate of Bank’s Venture Capital Catalyst programme. The programme is able to invest across a wide range of sectors, including businesses which specialise in video, mobile game development, artificial intelligence, data analytics and virtual reality.