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, when his Department plans to publish its response to the consultation on corporate transparency and register reform.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Corporate Transparency and Register Reform Consultation was launched on the 5th May 2019 and closed on the 5th August 2019. It received a significant number of responses. The Government plans to publish the response in due course.
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 the timetable is for introducing the Registration of Overseas Entities Bill.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Registration of Overseas Entities Bill has undergone Pre-Legislative Scrutiny by a joint parliamentary committee. The final Bill will reflect many of the committee’s recommendations to ensure that the legislation is as effective as possible in tackling the use of UK property for money laundering. The Bill will be introduced when Parliamentary time allows.
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 self-employed people in the West Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
We want to make sure that the UK is the best place in the world to work and grow a business. Our long-term plan is to support entrepreneurs, including self-employed individuals who are running or considering starting up a business, not just in the West Midlands, but in all parts of the UK.
That’s why we are backing businesses right across the country, with 381,000 new businesses starting last year, and the government-owned British Business Bank supporting over 91,000 SMEs with £7 billion of finance.
The British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme provides?loans to entrepreneurs seeking to start and grow their own businesses. The British Business Bank delivered more than 69,000 Start-Up Loans?since 2012, providing more than £558m of funding, in every part of the United Kingdom
The West Midlands has received 5,788 loans totalling over £44.8m and your constituency of Sutton Coldfield has received 101 loans totalling over £878,000.
Additionally, self-employed business people can access tailored advice and support through the 38 local Growth Hubs. They can also access support?through our Gov.uk website and the Business Support Helpline (0300 456 3565).
The West Midlands Local Industrial Strategy, published in May 2019, sets out a shared ambition to build on the region’s distinctive strengths to drive growth and ensure that all communities benefit from that growth, including the self-employed.
Self-employed mothers who qualify for Maternity Allowance are also now able to share parental leave and pay with an employed father or partner.
In addition, the Government has increased the personal allowance from £11,500 to £12,500 (benefiting employed and self-employed taxpayers) and self-employed people are now able to build their entitlement to the new State Pension at the same rate as employed people.
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 prevent pub closures in the West Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government recognises the importance of pubs to the economy and to community life in providing a place to socialise and encourage responsible drinking and welcomes recent data from the Office of National Statistics that suggest an increase in the number of pubs and bars in the UK for the first time in a decade. In order to provide support for pubs, the Government announced a freeze on beer duty at Budget 2018 which, together with previous cuts and freezes to alcohol duty, means a typical pint of beer is estimated to cost 14p less than it otherwise would have since ending the beer duty escalator in 2013.
Some 2,000 pubs have been listed as Assets of Community Value across the country in recognition of the positive role they play in their local areas and to allow the community to bid for those pubs should they be put up for sale. The Government has committed to help community groups to take over local community assets which are under threat, including pubs, by establishing a new £150m Community Ownership Fund.
In addition, many pubs will benefit from the business rates retail discount announced at Budget 2018, which cuts bills for eligible businesses by one third for two years from April 2019. The Government has committed to increasing the discount to 50% in 2020/21.
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.