Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate his Department has made of the number of small and medium sized businesses that have secured angel investment in the last 12 months in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle and (d) the North East.

Surveys by the UK Business Angels Association indicate that around 90% of business angels invest using either the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) or Small Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS). Therefore, while the Department does not collect data on angel investment directly, usage of EIS and SEIS is a reasonable proxy. These figures are available at a regional level.

The number of small and medium sized businesses that have secured investment using EIS and SEIS in the North East, in the last three years for which data is available, is as follows: