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 is taking to ensure that Government grants for start-up companies are not fraudulently obtained.

Government has robust checks in place and carries out due diligence through its Delivery Partners when issuing grants to both start-ups and established businesses. Where recipients have been found to act fraudulently serious action will be taken.

Through Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) competitive funding is provided to businesses, including start-ups. UKRI have a zero-tolerance approach to fraud and there are stringent controls and checks in place to stop fraud from happening throughout the lifetime of a project. These include:

• A rigorous assessment of the project costs a company submits as part of its application. If an applicant’s bid is successful, further due diligence checks on the viability of a company and the eligibility of the costs it has submitted are carried out, before the project is allowed to start and the company is able to start claiming any grant.

• Quarterly meetings between the project team and a dedicated Monitoring Officer, who helps ensure the project complies with the terms and conditions of the grant and is delivering it to plan.

• Participants providing evidence to support each claim made. This will include the mandatory submission of a report produced by an independent accountant alongside specific claims certifying that the costs incurred on the project are legitimate and directly attributable to the project. Grants will only be paid once audits and reports are completed, and UKRI are satisfied of their validity. Claims may be subject to an independent audit.

In addition, UKRI have a dedicated investigations team tasked with identifying individuals and companies who submit false information in order to obtain funding. Relevant information and intelligence is shared with Action Fraud and CIFAS, and where appropriate UKRI will apply as many sanctions as possible, including criminal prosecution and civil recovery. UKRI take all reasonable steps to prevent any organisation found to have acted fraudulently from accessing future funding, on behalf of the whole of Government.