Asked by: Lord Myners (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to address the regional disparities in small business lending, as reported in The Times on 21 January.
Answered by Lord Duncan of Springbank
The Government is committed to levelling up across the whole country so that businesses can access the funding they need to thrive wherever they are.
The British Business Bank (BBB) is a government-owned economic development bank which helps to drive economic growth by making finance markets work better for small businesses, enabling them to prosper and grow. Since BBB was established in 2014, it has supported over £7 billion of finance to over 91,000 SMEs across the UK (as at June 2019) and continues to grow. The stock of finance supported by the bank grew by 31% year on year (from June 2018 to June 2019).
BBB’s Start Up Loans programme has so far provided 69,201 loans worth over £558m to small businesses (at end-December 2019) and has delivered loans in every parliamentary constituency in the UK.
BBB has introduced specific funds and activities to help address regional disparities in access to finance, which are having an increasingly significant impact. These have equity and debt finance components, with the balance of debt to equity set according to the specific needs of the businesses in those regions.
The funds include:
For equity investment, the BBB also has a £100m Regional Angels Programme, which is designed to help reduce regional imbalances in access to early stage equity finance for smaller businesses across the UK (launched in October 2018 by British Business Investments, a commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank). In September 2019, the first £10m commitment through the programme was made to one of the largest business angel networks in the North of England which primarily operates in the North West, Yorkshire and the North East with more commitments to be announced in the coming year.
The UK Network, established in early 2019 by the British Business Bank is a UK-wide network of relationship managers which will continue to enhance and further build BBB’s relationships with key SME access to finance stakeholders across the UK and thereby help tackle regional imbalances in access to finance, including for smaller businesses seeking debt finance at all stages of their development.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps her Department is taking to support small business growth in (a) Sutton Coldfield and (b) the West Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
We are committed to ensuring all small businesses have access to the advice and support they need to start, grow, and scale up their businesses.
The Government-backed British Business Bank (BBB) is there to make finance markets work better for small businesses at all stages of their development. The Bank’s programmes are currently supporting over £6.6bn of finance to over 89,000 smaller businesses. The BBB’s Start-Up Loans programme provides loans to entrepreneurs seeking to start and grow their own businesses. Since 2012, the Programme has delivered over 67,000 loans, worth over £534m and 99 of these, totalling £857,912 went to small businesses in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
All businesses can access core services, information and guidance on starting up and running a business, as well as their statutory rights and obligations, on our GOV.UK websites, and our Business Support Helpline forms a key part of the government’s offer to SMEs in England, providing trusted and joined-up information and sign-posting businesses to relevant sources of support. In 2018, it helped 31,500 businesses, of which 65% were entrepreneurs and start-ups.
There are 38 Growth Hubs, one in each Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area providing a free and impartial, local single point of contact to all businesses, no matter their size or sector, to access advice and support from across the public and private sectors. The 6 Growth Hubs that encompass the wider West Midlands region have self-reported that in 2018-2019 they helped in excess of 10,864 businesses.
Through three rounds of competitive Growth Deals, Government has invested over £9bn of funding, boosting national productivity and growth.
The LEPs in the West Midlands region have been awarded Growth Deal funding totalling £1,080.2m and City Deal funding of £59.8m to invest in projects that benefit the local area and economy. This includes projects such as Universities@IBC where Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP has invested £2.49m to provide additional state-of-the-art enterprise space, extending the existing Faraday Wharf business incubation building at the Innovation Birmingham Campus.
SME’s in the West Midlands will also benefit from The Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which is providing a huge investment of over £250 million. It will support small businesses in the Midlands to start and grow, it has now invested nearly £50 million into over 140 SMEs.
We will continue to work to make small business owners more aware of the wide range of advice and support available to them.
Asked by: Paul Farrelly (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 the Midlands Engine policy focuses on the densely populated areas that surround big cities.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
As part of levelling up the regions the government is committed to a Midlands Engine Strategy to stimulate growth and increase productivity across the whole of the Midlands Engine region including densely populated areas that surround big cities. For example, we made commitments in the 2017 Midlands Engine Strategy to launch 5G tests beds to enhance digital connectivity in the region, including a Worcestershire test bed; to support the eight Enterprise Zones across the Midlands, including the Ceramic Valley Enterprise Zone in Staffordshire; and to allocate £392m of Local Growth Fund funding which is supporting a wide range of projects including £8.5 million for first phase improvements to the Hanley-Bentilee link road, and £6.9 million to support the formation of an Advanced Manufacturing Hub in Stoke and Staffordshire.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take in response to their statistics and reports on the English Indices of Deprivation 2019, published on 26 September.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to levelling up every part of the UK - unemployment is down 1.2 million since 2010 while wages continue to rise at their fastest in over a decade. We’re supporting families with their cost of living and providing more support to the most deprived authorities, which now have a spending power 16% higher per home than the least deprived. For those who need extra support, the UK Government spends over £95 billion a year, including for those who are on a low income.
Following our departure from the EU, we will create the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), a programme of investment designed to tackle inequalities between communities by raising productivity.
The Government recently announced 100 places which will be invited to develop proposals for our £3.6 billion Towns Fund - 45 of these places are in the Northern Powerhouse and 30 in the Midlands Engine, demonstrating our commitment to the whole country. The fund will deliver transformative investment in transport, digital, skills and culture in order to boost productivity and sustainably raise living standards in towns across the country.
The Chancellor confirmed in August that the National Infrastructure Strategy will be published in Autumn 2019. The Strategy will set out the Government’s plans to deliver a step change in infrastructure investment to support the UK economy, as well as providing a formal response to the NIC’s National Infrastructure Assessment. As part of his Spending Round speech, the Chancellor set out his ambitions to deliver an infrastructure revolution, which included a commitment to use increased infrastructure investment to support growth and productivity across the whole of the UK.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to section 2.26 of the print version of the Spending Round 2019 document, whether additional funding will be made available to the (a) Northern Powerhouse and (b) Midlands Engine.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Every place in the UK has a role to play in driving growth and we are committed to levelling up opportunities across towns, cities and communities across the country. As part of this, the recent Spending Round confirmed funding to extend a wide range of programmes into 2020/21, including for the Midlands Engine and the Northern Powerhouse.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps he has taken to support job creation from foreign direct investment in the East Midlands.
Answered by Graham Stuart
In 2016 the Department for International Trade established the Midlands Engine Investment Hub which has developed several sector-based investment propositions for the Foreign Direct Investment offer in key Midlands sectors, including the East Midlands. These are now promoted widely within DIT’s International network.
There were 69 investment projects that landed in the East Midlands in tax year 2018-2019, with 1,823 associated new jobs.
On 30 July the first East Midlands proposition within DIT’s High Potential Opportunities programme was launched. This showcases the Leicester Space Park offer and will be promoted to a targeted list of overseas investors.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to help businesses to create more highly skilled jobs in (a) Solihull and (b) the West Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Industrial Strategy is our long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create high-quality, well paid jobs throughout the United Kingdom, with investment in skills, industries and infrastructure. The Government is supporting businesses in Solihull and the West Midlands through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which brings together world-class UK research with business investment to develop the technologies that will transform existing industries and create entirely new ones. We have to date allocated £298,603,876 of ISCF grant funding to projects in the West Midlands and £14,409 for Solihull.
Government has been working alongside the West Midlands Combined Authority, Local Enterprise Partnerships and local businesses to develop the West Midlands Local Industrial Strategy. This sets out an ambitious long term vision for the region to increase its productivity, build on its sectors at the heart of the region like automotive and life sciences, and create new opportunities for people and businesses in emerging sectors and industries.
The government have also helped businesses through the British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme. Since its launch in 2012, the programme has delivered 58 loans, totalling £489,951 for businesses in Solihull.
We have also established a network of Catapult Centres to commercialise new and emerging technologies. In the West Midlands, this includes the High Value Manufacturing Catapult which has two centres in Coventry, and the Energy Systems Catapult in Birmingham. These catapults will help businesses in these areas, and across the UK, to do cutting-edge R&D and train apprentices and doctoral students in high-demand technical skills.
Further examples of action across Greater Birmingham and Solihull:
Further examples of action across the West Midlands:
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to help businesses to create more highly skilled jobs in the East Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Industrial Strategy is our long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create high-quality, well paid jobs throughout the United Kingdom, with investment in skills, industries and infrastructure. The Government is supporting businesses in the East Midlands through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which brings together world-class UK research with business investment to develop the technologies that will transform existing industries and create entirely new ones. We have to date allocated £6m of ISCF grant funding to projects in the East Midlands and already support a wider range of projects in the East Midlands. For example, we support a robotics project based with the University of Nottingham, in partnership with businesses based at the National Space Centre in Leicester, which is dedicated to investigating the potential of manufacturing in space; which could enable the in-orbit manufacture of replacement parts and tools.
Also, since its launch in 2012, the Start-Up Loans programme, part of the British Business Bank, has delivered more than 59,000 loans, totalling over £450m. 65 Start-Up Loans have been provided to the Mansfield constituency with a total value of £488,200.
Another example of our help to local businesses to create more highly skilled jobs in East Midlands, is through the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). They are developing Local Industrial Strategies setting out how they will support the growth in their local economies.Through the Midlands Engine Strategy, we are investing in skills, industries, and infrastructure to boost productivity and create highly skilled jobs. One such instrument is the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which provides over £250 million to support small businesses to grow. Examples of investments made by LEPs across the East Midlands that are designed to support businesses to create more highly skilled jobs include:
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the level of the economic contribution made by local supply chains in the Liverpool and Manchester Corridor to the rail industry.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Government values the contribution made by the rail supply industry to the UK economy. It is estimated that the rail industry and its supply chain employ up to 240,000 people and create up to £10.4 billion of GVA each year. There are significant rail industry clusters in both the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine, including firms such as Alstom and Wabtec Faiveley in North West England.
The Government is committed to supporting local rail supply chains through our industrial strategy and investment in the railway. For example, constructing the Ordsall Chord supported 2,000 jobs and 200 suppliers. £80 million was spent with companies within 25 miles of the project with 62% of those sub-contractors being small and medium-sized businesses. It has been built using mostly British steel, with the steel for the bridge fabricated in Bolton.
More widely, 70% of the HS2 supply chain are small and medium-sized businesses.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to promote the expansion of the technology sector in the East Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Through our modern Industrial Strategy, we are creating opportunities for the UK technology sector to build on its strengths and continue to grow. This includes the ambition to raise total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. The government is increasing spending on R&D by £7bn by 2021/22, the largest increase in 40 years.
Support in the East Midlands includes the recently announced funding to support the creation of a new, locally-led development body for Toton, with £70m for the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre. Innovate UK funding of £12m has been invested by the Energy Research Accelerator (ERA) in the Research and Acceleration Demonstration Building on Nottingham University’s Innovation Park. The D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership has contributed £5m of Local Growth Fund to the Advanced Manufacturing Building at Nottingham University’s Jubilee Campus. The facility will allow for diverse engineering and science disciplines to collaborate and contribute to pioneering developments for a range of sectors.
Through the Midlands Engine Strategy, we are investing in skills, industries, and infrastructure – building on the many strengths of the Midlands to boost productivity. It confirmed the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which provides over £250 million to support small businesses across the Midlands to start and grow.