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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to boost business confidence following a recent fall in spending on marketing by businesses.

Our modern Industrial Strategy is about making the UK the best place to start a business and we are strengthening the foundations of Britain’s economy, encouraging innovation in all its forms and supporting British businesses to thrive and grow.

We are ranked top 10 in the world for doing business by the World Economic Forum and World Bank – and our business environment is amongst the best in the world.

Through the Industrial Strategy, we are creating an economy that works for everyone: highly innovative, highly skilled and high quality, supported by low taxation and smart regulation. It is a long-term, cross-government plan for jobs and growth. It’s helping to shape a new future for a global UK by backing businesses and investing in innovation, skills, industries and infrastructure.

We are committed to building long-term strategic partnerships with businesses through Sector Deals between government and industry, and we have identified four Grand Challenges where the UK will lead the world in developing innovative solutions which can transform peoples’ lives, building on our strengths to put the UK at the forefront of industries of the future.

Our Business Productivity Review will be published shortly to explore actions that are most effective in improving the productivity and growth of businesses, including how we can spread the best practice of our most productive firms to those in the long tail. And as announced in the Autumn Budget 2018, we are investing £56m in programmes designed to enhance firm-level productivity, including improving peer to peer networks; a small business leadership programme and our Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Scheme.