Latest news with #BaronessGustafsson
Times
04-07-2025
- Business
- Times
‘Invest in women' fund draws fire from MPs
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.
Sky News
04-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Ministers to unveil revamped Whitehall investment hub
Ministers will this week unveil a revamp of the Whitehall investment hub that they hope will secure hundreds of billions of capital flows into the UK in the coming years. Sky News understands that Baroness Gustafsson, the investment minister, will address a private event on Thursday designed to relaunch the Office for Investment (OfI). Government sources said the revamp - in which Sir Keir Starmer's top officials and the Treasury have been closely involved - would align the UK's 'investment resources' under a single brand. The new OfI has absorbed teams from other Whitehall directorates with the objective of reducing confusion among international investors in Britain, according to the sources. Greg Jackson, the Octopus Energy chief, and Baroness Lane Fox, who chairs the British Chambers of Commerce, are expected to speak at the event in central London alongside senior government officials, according to people familiar with the agenda. Thursday's summit will come days before ministers launch the new industrial strategy, with the OfI charged with targeting investors in priority sectors such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing and life sciences. A beefed-up investment hub was among the key recommendations of the former business minister Lord Harrington's review - commissioned by then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt - in 2023. One insider said last year's International Investment Summit, at which ministers claimed to have drawn £63bn of new investment for the UK, provided a solid foundation for the revamped OfI. A further event designed to attract inward investment will be held in Birmingham later this year, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced on Wednesday.
