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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the number of local businesses in Crawley.

The ONS publish numbers of “active enterprises” for Crawley, based on their business register, and the following numbers include businesses registered for VAT and/or PAYE only. An active enterprise is one which has reported employment or turnover during the year.

2010 - 2,960

2011 - 3,015

2012 - 3,100

2013 - 3,215

2014 - 3,380

2015 - 3,605

Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were created in 2011 as partnerships between local authorities and business. All LEPs, including Coast to Capital, which covers Crawley, have Strategic Economic Plans based on their analysis of local economic conditions.