Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps she is taking to improve the (a) effectiveness and (b) availability of Government support for small businesses in Northern Ireland.
The Business Growth Service and the broader SME Strategy, to be published later this year, will help small businesses including in Northern Ireland, grow, innovate and thrive.
The Government is committed to supporting small businesses across the UK, including Northern Ireland. As a result for example, 320 SMEs in Northern Ireland - 3% of the national total, have benefited from the Help to Grow: Management (HTGM) programme, as of 31 March 2025.
Invest Northern Ireland (InvestNI), the national counterpart to the Business Support Service, offers extensive support in areas such as Entrepreneurship, Exports and Funding. In 2024 –25, InvestNI backed 726 Innovation and R&D projects representing £245m in investment.