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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he will take to collaborate with regionally-focused private equity firms to help encourage local businesses to expand as the economy reopens and covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.

The Government is already collaborating through regionally-focused private equity firms which are benefiting from funding from the government-backed British Business Bank (BBB) programmes such as the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, Midlands Engine Investment Fund and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Investment Fund. As of June 2020, the BBB’s dedicated regional funds support more than £240m worth of finance.

In order to support its regional activities further, BBB launched the £100m Regional Angels programme in 2018 – which is designed to help reduce regional imbalances in access to early stage equity finance for smaller businesses across all regions; and the UK Network – which engages with business finance stakeholders in each of the English regions and Devolved Nations, to increase small businesses’ awareness and understanding of the finance options best suited to their needs. The Future Fund is also open to companies from all regions and from all backgrounds.

We are considering a range of options that look at enhancing both new and existing levers to increase the supply of equity finance, particularly in regions, as part of the 2020 Comprehensive Spending Review discussions in order to support local businesses to expand as the economy reopens.