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 the Government has taken to boost the productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the East Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Small and medium sized enterprises in the East Midlands can access business advice through their local Growth Hubs. Led and governed by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP), Growth Hubs provide a free, impartial, ‘single point of contact’ to help businesses in the area identify and access the right support for them at the right time no matter their size or sector. The LEPs which cover the East Midlands have self-reported that in FY2017-2018 their Growth Hubs supported over 12,000 businesses and helped over 300 individuals start a business
Since its creation in 2012, the Government-backed Start Up Loans company has made 3,573 loans worth over £25.5m to the East Midlands region. In the Mansfield constituency, 66 loans have been made worth £503,200[1].
April 2019’s increase in the National Living Wage (NLW) means that 157,000 workers in the East Midlands have received an inflation-beating pay rise of 4.9%. The latest estimates suggest that 5,000 workers in Mansfield are receiving the NLW and National Minimum Wage.
The Industrial Strategy is creating an economy that works for everyone; setting out a long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs and increase the earning power of people throughout the United Kingdom. Nationally, the Government is providing up to £18.6 million to Be the Business to increase firm level productivity by supporting SMEs to make simple changes and learn from each other.
And the £9 million Business Basics Programme is testing innovative ways of encouraging SMEs to take-up proven technology and business practices that can boost productivity. A total of £2 million has been allocated to projects from the first round of the Business Basics Fund and we are expecting to allocate a further £2 million of funding in Autumn 2019.
[1] At May 2019
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: 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 help prevent pub closures.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Several measures have been introduced across Government to support pubs, including a freeze on beer duty announced at Budget 2018. This means that the price of a typical pint of beer in 2019 will be 2p lower than it would have been had duty increased with inflation and 14p lower than it otherwise would have been since ending the beer duty escalator in 2013.
Many small pubs will benefit from the business rates retail discount announced at Budget 2018, which cuts bills by one third from April 2019 for two years. It is available to pubs with a rateable value below £51,000 and is worth almost £900 million to businesses over two years. The Government estimates up to 75% of pubs in England could be eligible for the discount, subject to state aid limits and eligibility for other reliefs.