Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to increase the availability of growth capital across the UK.

It is the Government’s ambition that innovative UK companies can access the capital they need to start, scale and stay in the UK. At the Spending Review last year the government increased the British Business Bank’s total financial capital by two thirds to £25.6 billion, enabling the Bank to commit to supporting ten new-to-market growth-stage funds this Parliament.

The Bank is delivering against this commitment. We welcome the announcement that it will support a consortium of domestic pension schemes to raise a £1 billion growth-stage fund, potentially one of the largest raised in the UK.