PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Encouraging Entrepreneurship - 30 January 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The Government continue to support entrepreneurs through, for example, start-up loans via the British Business Bank. We will publish our small business strategy later this year, which will signal a clear, overarching ambition to promote entrepreneurship, and will articulate a new vision for business support, built around the new business growth service that I have alluded to.

One thing we need to continue to do is make it easier for entrepreneurs in the hon. Member’s constituency and across the UK to access the finance that they need to set up their business. We have given an extra £250 million to the British Business Bank, which will help to ensure that more people have access to finance across the country, including in his constituency. We will publish our small business strategy later this year, in which he will see further measures to support entrepreneurs in Broxbourne and across the UK.

What specific support is being provided for women entrepreneurs? They are the driving force behind small businesses in my Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituency, and deserve all the support that they can get.

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s substantive point. We are backing the Invest in Women taskforce, which was set up to increase the number of female-powered businesses. We are looking at how to increase significantly the proportion of investment going to all-female founding teams; it has been stuck at just 2% of equity investment in the last decade. That is one example of the things we need to change to help women-led businesses realise their full potential.