Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many SMEs in (a) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency and (b) Bexley Borough received Government financial support in 2022.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Minister without Portfolio
Businesses in Bexleyheath and Crayford will have benefitted from the Government’s reversal of the National Insurance rise, saving SMEs approximately £4,200 on average, the cut to fuel duty for 12 months and raising the Employment Allowance to £5,000.
The Energy Bill Relief and Energy Bill Discount Schemes will protect SMEs from high energy costs over the winter. The Autumn Statement announced £13.6 billion of support for businesses over the next five years, reducing the burden of business rates for SMEs.
The Government is providing financial support – 128 SMEs in Bexleyheath and Crayford have received Start Up loans to the value of £1,377,883 and 331 SMEs in Bexley Borough to the value of £3,423,737.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many people have received the Warm Homes Discount in Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency as of 30 November 2022.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government does not hold data on the number of rebate recipients by constituency. Energy suppliers are responsible for providing rebates to eligible households and are only required to report on the number of rebates provided in England, Scotland and Wales.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
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 support small business growth in (a) Bexley Borough, (b) Greater London and (c) England.
Answered by Paul Scully
Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) are the backbone of our economy and have a key role to play in driving economic growth. The Government has taken action to support UK SMEs, including support with business rates; increasing the employment allowance; cutting corporation tax from 28% to 19% and exempting small and micro businesses from regulations where possible.
The London Borough of Bexley received £4,852,729 in Local Growth Funding which was delivered through the London Economic Action Partnership.
The British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme provides loans of up to £25,000 for those starting a new business, or for businesses which have been trading for up to 24 months. In addition to finance, loan recipients are offered a dedicated mentoring service and access to a free expert business mentor for 12 months to help them with every aspect of setting up a business.
The Start Up Loans programme has delivered over 91,000 loans totalling more than £830m (as at January 2022). 292 loans have been issued in Bexley, totalling over £2,979,262.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
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 improve social mobility.
Answered by Lee Rowley
I refer my Rt. Hon. Friend to the answer given by my Hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities on 23 February 2022 (Official Report, Column 302-303) to Question 905707.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many businesses have received Government support during the ongoing covid-19 outbreak in (a) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, (b) Bexley Borough, (c) Greater London and (d) the UK.
Answered by Paul Scully
All data on Government allocations and Local Authority payments of Covid-19 grant schemes is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-grant-funding-local-authority-payments-to-small-and-medium-businesses.
Breakdowns of all Government Covid-19 loans by constituency, borough and regional area are available for download from the British Business Bank website.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of small businesses that have closed in (a) Greater London, (b) Bexley Borough and (c) the Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Paul Scully
Data on business closures by size of business are not available. The data provided in the table below cover all registered business closures for the years specified.
98.1% of all registered business are small (0 to 49 employees), according to the business counts published in 2020 by the Office for National Statistics in UK business: activity, size and location, so the vast majority of business closures are very likely to be small businesses.
Where available, data on business closures for all registered businesses over the last 5 years for each of the 3 geographies are shown in the table below:
Table: Number of business closures, all registered businesses, 2016 to 2020
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
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Greater London | 64,385 | 80,875 | 71,225 | 76,770 | 93,570* |
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Bexley Borough | 1,025 | 1,380 | 1,220 | 995 | ** |
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Bexleyheath and Crayford Constituency | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** |
Sources:
Office for National Statistics ‘Business Demography: 2019’
Office for National Statistics ‘Business Demography, quarterly experimental statistics, UK’
* Data from Office for National Statistics ‘Business Demography, quarterly experimental statistics, UK’. This may not be directly comparable to other data in the table which comes from Office for National Statistics ‘Business Demography: 2019’.
** No data available
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect on the hospitality sector of support provided by the Government since the start of 2021.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government has brought forward a substantial package of financial support for the hospitality sector since the start of the year. We keep these measures under close review and as a result my Rt hon Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer set out in the Budget a £65 billion three-point plan to provide support for jobs and businesses (including the hospitality sector), with extensions to furlough, self-employed support, business grants, loans and VAT cuts – bringing total fiscal support to over £407 billion.