Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to equip small and medium-sized enterprises with digital skills to help facilitate their growth.

The Government is ensuring that SMEs are equipped with digital skills in various ways.

We have launched eight Local Digital Skills Partnerships across England to tackle digital skills gaps including for small businesses and set up a Digital Skills Council which is focused on increasing industry uptake of digital apprenticeships, particularly for SMEs.

The Help to Grow: Management scheme is helping SMEs improve their leadership and management capability including their ability to adopt digital technology, and the Made Smarter programme supports digital transformation, including digital leadership skills, for SME manufacturers.