Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 17
17
Accepted
Increase British Business Bank support to help UK firms scale-up and commercialise innovation.
Recommendation
The industrial strategy must set out measures that will be used to help firms access the funding they need to scale-up and commercialise in the UK. As an initial step, we recommend that the Government increase the amount of support the British Business Bank can provide to help firms scale-up. (Recommendation, Paragraph 83)
Government Response Summary
The government states its Industrial Strategy outlines measures to help firms access funding through Public Financial Institutions, including increasing the British Business Bank's total financial capacity to £25.6 billion and committing an additional £4 billion for investment in IS8 sectors.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
10.1. The Industrial Strategy sets out how Government will deliver through the UK’s Public Financial Institutions (PuFIns) to ensure globally competitive support to businesses, titling their focus to the IS-8 and frontier industries to help firms in these areas access finance. This includes: • Increasing the British Business Bank’s (BBB) capacity and capability so that it can invest across the lifecycle of firms with high potential. At the Spending Review, the government announced the Bank’s total financial capacity would rise to £25.6 billion, enabling a two-thirds increase in support. The BBB will commit an additional £4 billion of capital to support investment into the IS8, focused on developing the UK’s venture ecosystem to encourage scale-up funds to raise more capital and lead larger investment rounds in UK firms. • Expanding the mandate of the National Wealth Fund to ensure that its £27.8 billion is deployed more strategically to drive growth. • Strengthening our export credit offer through increasing the maximum size of UK Export Finance’s (UKEF) financial portfolio by bringing forward legislation when parliamentary time allows, making an additional £3 billion of direct lending capacity available, and reviewing UKEF’s mandate to consider whether it should take on a broader trade and investment finance remit with additional flexibility to de-risk investment into IS8 firms.