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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps she has taken to support the development of businesses in deprived communities.

Across the UK, the Government-backed British Business Bank (the Bank) seeks to increase the supply of finance for smaller businesses and to reduce regional disparities in access to finance. The Bank’s programmes are currently supporting over £6.6 billion of finance to over 89,000 SMEs (as at June 2019). And through the Bank's Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) there is currently approximately £300mn of headroom available to lenders this financial year. There is also approximately £1bn of guarantee headroom currently available to lenders under the Bank's ENABLE Guarantee programme.

Government has also supported and invested in the creation of a network of 38 Growth Hubs in England – one in each Local Enterprise Partnership area) – to provide a free, impartial, single point of local contact to all businesses, no matter their size or sector, to access advice and support across the public and private sector: in 2018-2019 Growth Hubs in England supported over 121,500 businesses. At the end of FY18/19, Government had invested £56.4 million in Growth Hubs that helped over 9,500 individuals start a business achieving an average customer satisfaction rate of 81.45%.

Businesses in England can also access business support through GOV.UK, and the National Business Support Helpline.

Since Budget 2016, the Government has announced reductions to business rates worth more than £13 billion until 2021.

My rt. hon. Friend the Prime Minister has announced a £3.6 billion Towns Fund, including £1 billion for an accelerated Future High Streets Fund. Last year the Government also made a number of announcements to support High Street businesses:

• cutting the business rates bills of retailers by one third until April 2021 for properties with a rateable value below £51,000;
• potential for up to 90% of retail properties in England to be eligible for the retail discount, worth almost £900m to businesses over two years; and
• potential for retail discount to help a retailer save up to £8,000 off their 2019-20 bill.

At Autumn Budget 2018, HM Treasury announced that the VAT threshold will be maintained at the current level of £85,000 until April 2022. The VAT threshold is the highest in the EU and the OECD. It keeps an estimated over 3.55 million small businesses out of VAT.