Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of regional disparities in business start-up rates across the UK.

Data on regional start-up rates is available via the Office for National Statistics Business Demography publication. Latest data shows that London has the highest rate of business births and Northern Ireland has the lowest. There has been relatively little movement in disparities in regional start-up rates in recent years (2021 to 2024).