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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that there has been a fall in the number of UK business start-ups due to Brexit uncertainty.

The number of businesses start-ups varies from year to year, and are affected by a number of factors, including consumer demand and competition, as well as the international economic context.

Fundamentally, the UK has a strong business environment and the Government is committed to making the UK the best place in the world to work and to start a business. There are currently around 5.7 million SMEs employing 16.3 million people. We are ranked in the top 10 in the world for ease of doing business by the World Bank. 1,000 businesses start here every day. We are now home to three of the top 10 fastest growing companies in Europe and are the number one destination in Europe for inward investment projects.

But we are not complacent. We are backing Britain’s entrepreneurs in a number of ways. The Government backed British Business Bank’s programmes are currently supporting over £6.6 billion of finance to over 89,000 SMEs (as at June 2019) Start-Up Loans, which since 2012 has delivered almost 66,500 loans worth over £527 million to small businesses (at end-August 2019).

The Rose Review into Female Entrepreneurship published in March explored barriers women face starting a business and what can be done to overcome them. Government have set a goal to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by 50% by 2030 – that’s an additional 600,000 female entrepreneurs.

We have asked the Princes Trust to carry out an independent review to better understand young entrepreneurs, the specific barriers and opportunities they face, and what more can be done to support them to start and grow a business.