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 encourage UK-based institutional and private investors to invest in female entrepreneurs.

On 8 March, HM Treasury published the Rose Review into Female Entrepreneurship which explored the barriers women face when starting a business and what can be done to overcome them.

In response to Alison Rose’s findings, the government is setting out an ambition to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030. This will require an additional 600,000 female entrepreneurs, and concerted efforts from both the private and public sector.

We are establishing a new Investing in Women Code, which will report annually, and see financial institutions sign up, track how they are currently doing and take steps to improve how they allocate funding to female entrepreneurs.

I will also sponsor an industry-led taskforce alongside Treasury Ministers that will drive forward work to encourage greater investment in female entrepreneurs by all types of finance provider.