Sir Stephen Timms
MP for East Ham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If he would like to send me details of that particular case, I will happily look into it. On the subject of people with hearing impairments, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities and I will be meeting the British Sign Language Advisory Board this afternoon.”
“Better outcomes require early identification and support for girls and young women with special educational needs, including dyslexia. That is the aim of the SEND reforms and the development of national inclusion standards.”
“Autistic people and people with ADHD have been struggling to get the right support at the right time. Recommendations from Professor Karen Guldberg’s neurodivergence task and finish group directly informed the SEND reforms that were published earlier this year.”
“The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on public bodies to make reasonable adjustments, so that disabled people are not put at a disadvantage by accessibility challenges.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon.”
“I think we can take the hon. Member’s question as a tacit recognition that in 14 years the previous Government should have done something to fix these problems. The steering group is clear that the provision of cash to meet the additional costs of disability is vital.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,185 lines we hold for Sir Stephen Timms, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 24 of 104.
“I simply want to respond briefly to the intervention of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who mentioned me in passing—inaccurately, I must say. He was wrong to say that benefits have been uprated in line with inflation. At the moment, the headline rate of benefits is the lowest in real terms for 40 years, following the repeated freezes we have had. Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Gloucester ought to check the record?”
“The Work and Pensions Committee plans in the near future to launch an inquiry into the adequacy of benefit levels, a subject that the hon. Member for Amber Valley spoke about. It seems to me that the safety net is now so inadequate that it is damaging the economic recovery: it is too low to do its job properly.”
“Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I applaud the fact that the Government are honouring their obligations this year, and that the uprating will be 10% in time for the new financial year. That should prevent things becoming substantially worse for many in the coming year. But it is not going to make things much better. Trussell Trust food banks gave out 1.3 million food parcels from April to September last year—more than in any previous six-month period, and 50% more than before the pandemic. At the Liaison Committee in December, the Prime Minister said that he would “work very hard to deliver” lower food bank demand by the end of this Parliament. I warmly welcome his adoption of that goal, but it will be achieved only if social security support is increased in real terms. What is the right level for the social security safety net?”
“Annual uprating based on the previous September’s inflation is perfectly reasonable when inflation is stable, but it is not reasonable in the current volatile circumstances. The Committee called for a shorter gap—the hon. Gentleman echoed this—between the inflation reference period and the uprating date, preferably using inflation data from the previous quarter, or possibly more recent still. In the past year, the lag has caused real hardship. Benefits were uprated last April by the inflation rate of the previous September: 3.1%. By the time the uprating took effect, inflation was nearly 10%. The result has been benefits at the lowest real-terms level for 40 years, and a big surge in food bank demand. Like the hon.”
“I echo the relief expressed by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) about the uprating decision, and I am pleased to follow his speech. I will begin with some points about the way we uprate benefits and echo some of the important points made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), whose contribution to the Select Committee I appreciate. We now know that legacy benefits will be claimed by some people until at least 2028. The Select Committee, in its report last July, called on the Department to improve its IT systems and increase the speed with which changes can be made to legacy benefit and state pension rates, and the lack of progress has been disappointing.”
“It is clear that the immediately preceding Administration —the interim Government, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys described it—would not have honoured those obligations. The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) told us yesterday that her Administration was brought down by a left-wing conspiracy in the financial markets. It is not clear whether she regards my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) as having been responsible for organising that.”
“I absolutely agree. That was the one point at which food bank demand fell, and of course it went straight back up once the £20 uplift was removed. The level of the safety net is now too low for it to do its job properly from the standpoint of economic efficiency. People are being forced to accept unsuitable jobs, with no prospect of training or advancement, simply in order to subsist. That is one reason why the UK’s productivity record is so poor, and we will not deliver economic growth until we tackle that productivity failing. Interesting cross-party thinking on the matter is under way, for example in the work of the Poverty Strategy Commission set up and chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. Our Committee’s inquiry will be able to draw on that and other work.”
“Actually, of course, it was brought down by economic reality. But I do not think that that Administration would have delivered an inflation uprating, so it is to the credit of the current Administration that they have done so. I also welcome the increase in the benefit cap. The cap was introduced in 2013 and then reduced in 2016; it has never been increased at all. At the beginning of April it finally will be, thank goodness, but only by the overall rate of benefit uprating, which means that in effect it is a standstill increase. The impact of the benefit cap will not get worse in the coming year, but that will not affect the worsening impact of the cap’s falling in real terms every year since it was introduced.”
“Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) made about the absence of an uprating to the local housing allowance, which is a very big problem. The LHA will be frozen for the coming year at the level at which it was set in 2020, even though rents are rising fast. When I raised the matter with the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee in December, he replied that the uprating in 2020 represented “a very significant cash uplift at the time, which it is appropriate to have maintained”, echoing the wording of the ministerial statement from which my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North quoted.”
“There is a strong case for that. At the time when the benefit cap was introduced, we were told that it was to prevent people from receiving more in benefits than they would if they were working, but any relationship with wage levels has long since disappeared. In its briefing for this debate, the Child Poverty Action Group makes the point that the increase does not undo the damage of the cap having been frozen since 2016, but “pushes families who would be in poverty anyway into even deeper poverty.” It points out that 123,000 households are currently affected by the cap, including 107,000 households with children. That is one reason why, before the pandemic, when the data was most recently updated, 700,000 more children were in poverty than in 2010. The case for the cap needs to be reconsidered. I want to pick up a point that my hon.”
“Their situation, to which the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys was right to draw attention, has to be addressed. Most immediately, however, I urge the Minister to take another look at the local housing allowance level. Ministers say that they are committed to eradicating rough sleeping, but it does not look as though they mean it. Keeping the local housing allowance frozen for a fourth year will drive a further surge in the number of rough sleepers, as well as very serious problems for hundreds of thousands of others.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North for drawing attention to the Select Committee’s recommendation about the cap on the level of childcare support in universal credit. It is regrettable that there is nothing in the present measures that will address that, but I hope we might see something in the Budget on that front, given the cross-party concern about the inadequacy of childcare support at a time when we want to encourage people back into work. It is a relief that a catch-up uprating is being delivered to the main rates of benefit, but we are a very long way from providing an adequate social security safety net. A large-scale repair job will be needed in the near future. There is growing evidence that disabled people are facing an especially tough time in the current cost of living crisis.”
“At the start of 2022, some 1.7 million people—more than one in three renters in the private rented sector—were dependent on housing support to help them with their rent. Fewer than one in 12 private homes listed last year were affordable within the local housing allowance level; that figure reduced by a third in just five months last year. The level of support is now being frozen in cash terms for a further year. Crisis said last week that it was “particularly concerned that the lack of social housing and the growing gap between overheating rents and the frozen Local Housing Allowance is pushing people towards homelessness.” That is the reality of the impact of the policy, which should urgently be reconsidered. Ministers say that they are committed to ending rough sleeping, but the policy is driving an increase in rough sleeping.”
“Last week, the Combined Homelessness and Information Network reported that up to 3,570 people were sleeping rough in London from October to December 2022—a 21% rise on the same period in the previous year, with a 29% increase in the number of new rough sleepers. The chief executive of Crisis said: “It is simply disgraceful that the numbers of people forced to sleep on the capital’s streets is very nearly back to the record levels we were seeing before the pandemic.” Zoopla data shows large shortfalls for the cheapest properties by the end of last year: the shortfall for a one-bedroom home in Southwark had almost doubled in five months to £2,630 a year, while the shortfall for a three-bedroom home in Bromley had increased by more than £1,000 in five months to £3,555.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful argument that the rate at which rents are now rising is devastating household finances in many parts of the country. All the 2020 increase—the much-vaunted “generous uplift”—did was raise the local housing allowance back to the level at which it had been set at the beginning of the decade: at the 30th percentile of local rents. In other words, it was raised to a level at which it covered three in 10 of the homes of that size in each local area, so even in 2020 it was not enough to cover the rent for seven out of 10 of the homes available. Since then, it has been frozen; by the end of the coming financial year it will have been frozen for four full years. The consequences are becoming clear.”
“We should not just see the evidence after the Government have announced what they plan to do, because changing the Government’s mind at that point will not happen. A wide public debate should take place now, but it cannot happen unless the independent review and the Government Actuary’s report are published before the announcement is made. I ask the Minister to resist the temptation to keep the documents hidden for even longer and instead to remember the wise words of David Cameron, and to be open and publish those two key documents.”
“They went on to argue that if further ONS statistics show relatively lower life expectancy growth, that could imply further delays to planned increases, and perhaps even abandoning the planned rise to 67. The former pensions Minister but two—I think— Steve Webb, who is now a partner at Lane Clark & Peacock said: “The Government’s plans for rapid increases in state pension age have been blown out of the water by this new analysis. Even before the Pandemic hit, the improvements in life expectancy which we had seen over the last century had almost ground to a halt.” Those are important public policy questions. They should be debated in Parliament and among the public before the Government announce their decision, so that that public and parliamentary debate can inform the Government’s decision.”
“Of course, the 2020 figures did not take any account of changes arising from the pandemic. The change in projection has prompted some commentators to call for the planned rises in the state pension age to be abandoned, or at least to be slowed. Lane Clark & Peacock took the latest Office for National Statistics life expectancy projections and reran the 2017 calculations of the Government Actuary’s Department. They concluded that any move from 67 to 68 would not be needed until the mid-2060s rather than the mid-2040s, and certainly not by the late 2030s, as suggested by The Sun . They also suggested that the move from 66 to 67, which is currently scheduled to be phased in over two years from 2026, could be put back until the end of the 2040s.”
“One of the expert witnesses at this morning’s meeting of the Select Committee said, “Mortality seems to have peaked, because one reason why there was increasing mortality was that the second world war lifestyle was ironically quite healthy for people, and the numbers are now going down quite a lot.” We were discussing something else this morning, and I do not know what evidence the witness was drawing on there, but I do not know what evidence the Government will draw on either, because it has not been published and it should have been. There should be no delay in publishing it. Cohort life expectancy statistics are produced every two years. A new set is expected this year. The latest, 2020-based projections show life expectancy at 65 still rising, but at a slower rate than in previous releases.”
“Now that the Government are unwilling to publish the analysis before they announce their decision, we clearly cannot do that. The Sun has reported that the Government plan to raise the state pension age from 67 to 68 as early as 2035, which will affect everyone who is 54 and under, instead of 10 years later, as set out in current legislation. Is that the right thing to do? Well, we need to see the evidence. The key evidence is about future projections of life expectancy. As we heard from the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), emerging evidence shows that the trend of rising life expectancy is not what it was before the pandemic.”
“The terms of reference said that it should explore what metrics the Government should take into account when considering how to set state pension age. They stated that it should include a consideration of recent trends in life expectancy in every part of the United Kingdom; whether it remained right for there to be a fixed proportion of adult life that people should, on average, expect to spend over state pension age, and what metrics would enable state pension costs, and the importance of sharing those fairly between generations, to be taken into account. The Select Committee agreed months ago that once Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s review had been published, we would take evidence on it, including from her, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley said, before the Government announced their decision.”
“Surely, Ministers should take advantage of public debate to inform their decisions, rather than refusing to show anyone the evidence until after the Government have made up their mind. What has become of David Cameron’s belief in sunlight? We are talking here not about confidential advice to Ministers—there is no requirement to publish that—but rather about expert analysis that will eventually be published, and which sets out the evidence that will underpin the Government’s decision. Publish it now so that everybody can see it. The protocol says that “analysis should be published promptly…as early as possible following agreement of the final output.” So it should be. The recent independent review was announced in December 2021.”
“When asked why these reports are not being published before the Government’s announcement as they were for the 2017 review, the Minister, who is in her place, replied that “this is a different publication schedule to the last review, the issues are still under consideration and so we think this approach is more appropriate.” In other words, they appear to be saying, “We don’t want anyone to see the evidence until we have made up our mind. This is still under consideration, so we think it is not appropriate to publish the evidence.” Surely, there ought to be a public debate about all this before the Government make their decision, not afterwards. This instinct of hiding things, not disclosing them, and not complying with the requirements of the cross-Government protocol is very damaging to the Government’s ability to make good policy.”
“In my brief contribution to this important debate, I mainly want to press the Minister to publish now both the report by the independent reviewer, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, which the Secretary of State received on 16 September last year—more than four months ago—and the related Government Actuary’s report, which was submitted to Ministers on 5 October. Publish them now. Why have they not been published already? What possible benefit can there be in keeping this important work and evidence hidden for all this time? The Select Committee has published today an exchange of letters with the Minister on the subject.”
“I have been hoping very much that the new ministerial team will turn over a new leaf and take a more enlightened approach. Indeed, the new Secretary of State has hinted that he is considering the advantages of greater openness. But here we have a flagrant example of his predecessor’s bad habits of hiding analysis and evidence until it is convenient to the Government to release them. Instead of publishing the evidence four months before the Government’s decision, as was done in 2017—around the time the former pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham, was appointed—the Department is keeping the evidence hidden until it makes its announcement “early in 2023”. Presumably, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley has suggested, that will be at the time of the Budget next month.”
“Preventing public discussion no doubt has the benefit of allowing Ministers to avoid having to answer difficult questions, but it has the disastrous drawback of worsening policy outcomes. The policy cannot be informed by public debate before the decisions are made, because the evidence that would allow a debate is not available. The Government publication protocol was watered down a little last year, but its essential gist remains unchanged. It says, for example: “The primary purpose of social research commissioned and conducted by government is to inform…policy and delivery, but it also plays a role in wider policy debate.” That is quite right, but, as we have discussed in the Chamber on various occasions, in the DWP the requirements of the protocol are simply ignored. They are not being fulfilled.”
“In 2017, when the first review of state pension age was undertaken for the Government by John Cridland—as the hon. Member for Amber Valley has pointed out—his report, and the report of the Government Actuary, were both published on 23 March 2017, nearly four months before the DWP’s own review was set out on 19 July 2017, shortly after the hon. Member for Hexham took up his former post as Pensions Minister in June 2017. I have often expressed great regret that the Department, for some reason or other—perhaps reflecting a different approach across Government—has abandoned the practice set out by David Cameron and instead now resists publication of research and analysis, or delays it for as long as it possibly can.”
“We are repeatedly told that it will be done in the mid-2020s, but time to implement it before 2025 is either running out or has possibly already run out. In my remarks, I will focus on the process we are in. I recall the wise words of David Cameron, who said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” He argued—rightly, in my view—for a culture of openness in government. One of the results of his view was the 2010 protocol on publication of all Government social research, which was most recently updated last year. It states: “Principle 1: The products from government social research and analysis will be made publicly available”, and that research should be published “promptly”, within 12 weeks of completion. For a number of years, that was, to their credit, the Government’s approach.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing this Backbench Business debate, which gives us the chance to ask for the Government’s views on this topic of great importance and enormous public interest. I am delighted that the Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), and the former Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), are in their places on the Front Bench. I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Amber Valley said. The idea of spending a third of adult life in retirement is a sensible yardstick to run with. He made the point, in passing, about the importance of implementing the recommendations of the auto-enrolment review, and I agree with him that that is important.”
“The two documents from 2017 to which the Minister referred were published four months before the Government’s announcement. Why have the Government not published the documents before their announcement this time around, and will she do so now?”
“My constituents welcome the Secretary of State’s grasp of their problems, but his changes have required some arrangements that were previously in place to be reworked. In the case of Barrier Point in my constituency, the insurers have responded to the delay by increasing the insurance charges for the coming financial year sixfold, as set out in my letter to him dated 13 January. Will the changes that he has announced offer any assistance and relief to them?”
“Rightmove reported last autumn that rents in London had increased by more than 16% in a year, yet, as the Secretary of State has said, housing support through local housing allowance has been frozen since 2020. Will Ministers look again in the Budget at the level of local housing allowance for the coming financial year?”
“The current chairman of the Conservative party went on television before he settled his tax debt and said that his tax affairs were “fully paid and up to date”. We now know that that statement was untrue, do we not?”
“The report refers to a “breakdown in trust of formal institutions”, and reports that 67% of black business owners have been negatively discriminated against in their past entrepreneurial efforts, that 84% of business owners see racism and society’s attitude to black entrepreneurs as a barrier to their business, and that black business owners turn to their friends, black business community groups or social media groups rather than banks for advice and support.”
“I also know the work Lloyds does with the Black Business Network, founded and chaired by Shari Leigh, which was highlighted to me by my former constituent Shi Dolor, whom I knew when she was a teenager and whose Noir Squared branding business has worked with the network. In September, the network published the second of three annual reports called “Black. British. In Business …and Proud!” As a Lloyds executive recognises in her foreword, it makes for “uncomfortable reading”.”
“HSBC sponsored last year’s Black Business Week and Black Business Show. Santander works with a network of women of colour in business and supports a black inclusion programme. NatWest has a racial equality taskforce and an ethnicity advisory council. Barclays has a black founders accelerator. The initiatives that I have seen most of are those supported by Lloyds bank. It has a black business advisory committee, chaired by Claudine Reid MBE, whom I first met when I was a Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry 20 years ago. I had embarked on a tour of social enterprises and found myself at PJ’s in Croydon, set up and run by Claudine and her husband.”
“The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry quotes Ismail Oshodi describing his experience: “we had different people dealing with us and I had to repeat myself on several occasions, even with all of that, we were unable to get the amount we needed. We weren’t given a clear reason why, we was just told we did not meet their criteria.” The LCCI says that 44% of black African business owners and 39% of black Caribbean business owners fear prejudice from financial providers, compared with just 4% of white owners. Let us be frank: racism is part of the problem. It is not that the banks do not recognise the problem; they do, and they are trying to do something about it. UK Finance published a report in July, “Supporting Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship in the UK”, which profiled numerous initiatives.”
“The Social Market Foundation has found that ethnic minority-led businesses are often more innovative, with a lot to contribute to levelling up the economy, and that the economy is weaker because those businesses lack support. I want to highlight two main points arising from the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry report: the need to address the barriers that ethnic minority businesses face in accessing finance, and the need for better data on how those businesses are getting on. The key barrier, and the focus of that report, is problems accessing finance. Black entrepreneurs in particular report bad experiences with banks, and Asian entrepreneurs struggle to access funding outside their own communities. Those who do apply for funding are far less likely to receive it.”
“In May, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry published the report “Ethnic Diversity in Business”. I commend the work of Esenam Agubretu and her colleagues. That report identifies the barriers that minority-led businesses face. In 2021, about 14% of the UK population was from an ethnic minority background, but ethnic minority-led businesses constituted just 5% of small and medium-sized enterprises in 2020, and those businesses also tend to be in lower-paying sectors. We need to be doing much better than that. The economic contribution of ethnic minority-led businesses is large, but the potential is larger still. Baroness McGregor-Smith’s 2017 review, “Race in the workplace”, concluded that “If BME talent is fully utilised, the economy could receive a £24 billion boost.” We need to realise that opportunity.”
“I regret the closure of the Department for Work and Pensions support programme for self-employment, with no sign of a replacement as yet. That programme gave helpful support to a significant number of my constituents to start up in business for themselves. Minority-led businesses have made a lot of progress. Minority Supplier Development UK, a not-for-profit membership group that champions diversity and inclusion in public and private sector supply chains, highlighted in a report last year called “Minority Businesses Matter” that of the UK’s 23 unicorns—start-ups valued at $1 billion or more—eight had ethnic minority founders, including Deliveroo. That gives a sense of the huge potential in this area, which we need to realise much more.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered support for entrepreneurs from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and I am very pleased to see the Minister in her place. I represent in Parliament the eastern half of the London Borough of Newham, which is probably the most ethnically diverse community on the planet. Last year’s census showed that just 45% of residents were born in the UK, and that 52% identify as Asian, compared with 9% nationally, and another 14% identify as black. Some 25% identify as white, compared with 82% nationally, so ethnic minority entrepreneurship is very important for the prosperity of the community that I represent.”
“When the Minister responds, can she assure us that the Government recognise the need, spelled out by the LCCI, for strategic engagement between the business community, Government and ethnic minority entrepreneurs?”
“We need to grip this issue now, so that trends can be monitored and support appropriately targeted. We cannot meet the needs of minority-led businesses without having adequate information about their characteristics and their performance. In the LCCI report, Dr Tony Matharu, chair of the LCCI’s Asian Business Association, and Lord Michael Hastings, chair of its Black Business Association, call for financial institutions to collect data about their support for ethnic minority businesses, as they do for women-led businesses under the Investing in Women code. The two issues that I have highlighted are part of a much bigger set of challenges.”
“Companies House does not record the ethnicity of company directors. There is no legal requirement for businesses to publish their ethnicity pay gap, although they are rightly obliged to publish their gender pay gap. In 2017, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), promised to ask large employers to publish their ethnicity pay gap data. It has not happened yet. Can the Minister tell us whether that 2017 commitment still stands, and if so, when it will be implemented? The paucity of data means that there is a lot that we just do not know. Without detailed and reliable data on ethnic minority entrepreneurship, we cannot fully understand the barriers that exist, as we must if we are to remove them. In this recession, the gap between ethnic minorities and others in business may well get worse.”
“In the LCCI’s report, a quote caught my eye from Demi Ariyo, founder of a funding platform: “It became clear to me that there was a problem to be solved upon witnessing my church’s experience and hearing the first-hand experience of other minority ethnic entrepreneurs who had tried to seek funding.” As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on faith and society, I would like there to be greater support for entrepreneurship among people who are coming together in faith groups. Britain’s history is replete with great businesses that have their roots in religious faith. Let us have more of them, and newer ones. My second point is about the lack of reliable data on ethnic diversity in business, which the report describes as “a recurring theme”. Here again, we need action by Government and by business.”
“The LCCI wants the Government to move beyond merely “best endeavours” to introducing, for example, minimum target percentages for procurement from minority-owned businesses, in order to simplify procurement procedures and increase public purchasing from micro-businesses. It also wants tenders to be scored, in bid assessments, on supply chain diversity, and the Government to establish prestigious awards to highlight the achievements of minority-owned businesses.”
“When the Minister responds, can she give us the Government’s assessment of the lending practices of financial institutions to ethnic minority businesses, and say whether she sees real progress being made? It is welcome that between 2012 and 2018, over 11,000 ethnic minority entrepreneurs received Government-backed start-up loans. The additional action that is needed is largely for the financial services industry, but there is one area where Government action is particularly needed: public procurement. A big section of the report by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry is devoted to this area, and it calls for a Government taskforce to work on increasing public procurement from ethnic minority businesses.”
“I welcome the Labour party review of start-up funding, led by Lord O’Neill, who was a Treasury Minister in the coalition Government. The review will consider how to ensure that ethnic minority entrepreneurs can access the finance, support and networks they need. Newham-based Shpresa is a community organisation supporting self-help among London’s Albanian community. It was founded and led by the remarkable Luljeta Nuzi, a social entrepreneur I first met when she came to the UK seeking asylum from Kosovo. She went on to graduate from the School for Social Entrepreneurs, and when today’s debate was announced, she drew my attention to the school’s match trading initiative, which provides enterprise grant finance, supported by Lloyds bank; the aim is that racially minoritised social enterprises should be early adopters.”
“They have fewer savings, so they are more reliant on external financial support. Given that, it is no surprise that minority-led businesses do less well. According to London Chamber of Commerce and Industry research, 38% of Asian and other minority business owners and 28% of black business owners reported making no profit, compared with 16% of white business owners. Thirty-nine per cent. of black entrepreneurs and nearly half of Asian and other ethnic minority entrepreneurs stopped working on their business idea because of “difficulties getting finance”, compared with a much smaller proportion—just a quarter—of white entrepreneurs. We need to be doing better than this, for the sake of not just business owners but the wider prosperity of our society.”
“I very much agree with the hon. Member. That point is made in the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry report, and she is right to highlight it. Over half of black business owners say that they have seen banks taking action to deal with the problem, but only 12% think that that action taken is significant. Minority-led businesses also account for very little venture capital investment, less than 2% of which went to all-ethnic founder teams in 2019, according to the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Black African firms are four times more likely than white firms to be refused a loan, according to the British Business Bank. Mainstream services do not seem to be working for ethnic minorities. Ethnic minority groups have less wealth than their white counterparts, and there is a strong correlation between that and business success.”