Select committee: Treasury Committee
Conclusion 6
Nineteenth Report - Venture Capital
Published 24 Jul 2023
Paragraph 40
Addressed to HM Treasury
Treasury Committee The venture capital market All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Venture capital tax reliefs are uses of public funds. It is only right and proper that their use is open to public scrutiny, including whether such funds are deployed fairly to women and people from ethnic minorities. At the moment, their use is unacceptably opaque.
From: Treasury Committee, Nineteenth Report - Venture Capital (HC 134), paragraph 40, 24 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 October 2023 (deadline 24 September 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.HM Treasury agrees that the EIS and VCT sunset clauses should be extended and that diversity data could be improved, but disagrees with making diversity data a condition of eligibility or with extending the company age and funding limits.
- On the sunset clauses, the Chancellor has stated his "firm intention" to extend the schemes beyond 6 April 2025, and HM Treasury "will provide further details on the schemes beyond 2025 at a future fiscal event".
- HM Treasury agrees that diversity data transparency and consistency could be improved and "will explore ways" to achieve this, but "does not agree" that eligibility for the schemes should be contingent on providing it.
- On a 'comply or explain' policy for the Investing in Women Code and Women in Finance Charter, the government "remains to be convinced" it should apply to EIS, SEIS and VCT eligibility, noting the British Business Bank already operates such an approach for its applicants.
- HM Treasury "is not convinced" that extending company age limits is the best way to support regional funding, and "disagrees" with consulting on higher funding limits, citing the risk of displacing investment from smaller companies.