‘Invest in women' fund draws fire from MPs

Times

04-07-2025

The government's policy on helping more women to start and run businesses came under fire from MPs after a delay in handing out the funds.
The Commons select committee on women and equalities was told by Baroness Gustafsson, the investment minister, that the Invest in Women Taskforce fund, which has raised over £250 million, will start backing female-founded and run startups by the end of 2025, a year after it first said it had secured the money.
Alex Brewer, a Liberal Democrat MP on the committee, said: 'We are making steps forward, but they're tippy-toe steps, not great big strides. That boldness, that vision just doesn't seem to be there.'
During the session, Sarah Owen, the committee chairwoman, highlighted the 'frustration' being expressed by Brewer and other committee members towards the minister, in particular at female entrepreneurs not featuring in the government's industrial strategy.
Brewer said this omission was 'devastating' and 'demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the structural barriers that women face'.
Research has found that businesses led by all-women founding teams received just 1.8 per cent of all venture capital funding in the first half of 2024, down from 2.5 per cent for the whole of 2023.
Owen referred to the 'massive prize' that could be won if government policy enabled more women to succeed in business, referring to the over £250 billion that the official Rose Review said could be added to the British economy if women scaled businesses at the same rate as men.
The committee opened an inquiry in February to examine the state of female entrepreneurship in the UK and the barriers women face when building their companies.
Gareth Thomas, the minister responsible for supporting entrepreneurs building fast-growing businesses, said the government would soon be releasing its SME strategy, which will address some of the problems of access to finance, which he said was the 'single biggest obstacle' for female entrepreneurs. He also said extra funds were given to the British Business Bank during the spending review.
Debbie Wosskow, a serial entrepreneur and investor who co-chairs the Invest in Women Taskforce, said in April that the UK was a 'pretty terrible place' to be a female entrepreneur.
The taskforce was set up under the last government to address the shortage of growth capital available to female business owners and is co-chaired by Hannah Bernard, head of business banking at Barclays.
Earlier this week Hived, an ecommerce parcel delivery firm, co-founded by chief executive Murvah Iqbal, raised $42 million from Japanese-backed investors to expand its all-electric fleet across southern England.
The women and equalities committee will now make its recommendations to the government.