Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate she has made of the number of small businesses in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry and (c) England that have closed in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Numbers of enterprise (business) ‘deaths’ (closures) are not available at the parliamentary constituency level. Neither are they available, yet, for unitary authorities in 2023.
Numbers of enterprise ‘deaths’ are not available broken down by business size and are only available for PAYE and/or VAT registered businesses.
Data in the 2 tables below show total numbers of registered enterprise ‘deaths’ in England in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and in Coventry in 2021 and 2022.
Table 1: Counts of all enterprise ‘deaths’ in 2021 and 2022 in England and Coventry
| 2021 | 2022 |
England | 291,370 | 308,900 |
of which… |
|
|
Coventry | 1,570 | 1,750 |
Source: ONS business demography
Table 2: Provisional counts of all enterprise ‘deaths’ in 2023, in England
| 2023 |
England | 293,170 |
Source: ONS business demography, quarterly experimental statistics
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what data her Department holds on the number of people in (a) the West Midlands, (b) Coventry and (c) Coventry North East constituency who have been employed in the automotive industry in each of the last three years.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
According to the ONS Business Registers and Employment Survey (BRES) the estimated numbers employed in automotive manufacturing in the West Midlands, Coventry and Coventry North-East were as follows (latest published year 2022):
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
West Midlands | 54,000 | 57,000 | 46,000 |
Coventry | 7,000 | 7,000 | 6,000 |
Coventry North-East | 1,750 | 2,000 | 1,500 |
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate she has made of the number of pubs that have closed in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The latest ONS data[1] (as of 19 October 2023) shows the overall number of public houses and bars in Coventry North East, Coventry, the West Midlands and in England for each of the last 5 years (Table 1).
Table 1: Number of Public House and Bar Local Units, 2019 – 2023
Date | Coventry - North East | Coventry | West Midlands | England |
2019 | 35 | 120 | 3,515 | 33,305 |
2020 | 35 | 115 | 3,485 | 33,125 |
2021 | 30 | 115 | 3,415 | 32,430 |
2022 | 35 | 125 | 3,485 | 32,790 |
2023 | 40 | 125 | 3,505 | 32,665 |
Business closures (VAT de-registrations) are not available at this level of industrial and geographical detail. However, the Insolvency Service[2] do publish monthly data on the total number of insolvencies in the food and beverage services sector in England and Wales from 2019 to 2022 (Table 2).
Table 2: Food and beverage service activities insolvencies, England and Wales, 2019 – 2022[3]
Date | Food and beverage service activities insolvencies |
2019 | 2,150 |
2020 | 1,542 |
2021 | 1,542 |
2022 | 2,523 |
[1] ONS Business counts via NOMIS. Data relates to SIC 56.302 – Public houses and bars.
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/monthly-insolvency-statistics-september-2023
[3] This data represents the sum of monthly insolvencies per year for SIC 56 - Food and beverage service activities.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of trends in the regional spread of business debt in (a) each of the last three years and (b) during the cost of living crisis.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The regional spread of debt among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has remained broadly the same over the past three years. The following figures are taken from UK Finance data and are taken as a share of the value of loan facilities of SMEs in Great Britain.
Between Q2 2020 and Q4 2021, regional shares of SME lending:
· Increased in London (21% to 22%)
· Decreased in the South East (14% to 13%), and North West (11% to 10%)
· Stayed the same in the South West (11%), East Midlands (6%), West Midlands (9%), East of England (7%), Yorkshire and the Humber (7%), North East (3%), Wales (4%), and Scotland (8%)
Between Q1 2022 to Q2 2023, regional shares of SME lending:
· Increased in London (21% to 22%)
· Decreased in the North West (11% to 10%)
· Stayed the same in the South East (14%), South West (11%), East Midlands (6%), West Midlands (9%), East of England (7%), Yorkshire and the Humber (7%), North East (3%), Wales (4%) and Scotland (8%)
Government is helping more businesses get the finance they need through the next generation of Nations and Regions Investment Funds, which will provide £1.6 billion of debt and equity finance to small businesses outside London and the South East.
The first of these funds launched in the South West of England in July 2023.