Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the introduction of a mentoring scheme for businesses who wish to export to a country or region that partners such businesses with other businesses that export to that country or region.

Lord Maude made a statement to the House of Lords on Tuesday 19 January on the Government’s strategy to support trade. The new operating model set out in the statement will see UK Trade & Investment start to pilot schemes that provide direct support to businesses over the coming months.

There are no plans to pilot a mentoring scheme. Instead, UKTI will continue to identify opportunities to connect UK businesses via the mentorsme network, Britain’s first online gateway for small and medium sized enterprises looking for mentoring services. This service offers businesses free access to a list of quality-assured business mentoring organisations across Britain.