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British Business Bank response to Autumn Budget 2024

Press release 30 October 2024

  • Over £1bn across 2024-25 and 2025-26 for the British Business Bank to enhance access to finance for smaller businesses
  • Including support for Start Up Loans; ENABLE Build; the Growth Guarantee Scheme; the Life Sciences Investment Programme, Future Fund: Breakthrough, and the Regional Angels Programme
  • Commitment to invest £50m into female-led funds through its existing programmes

The British Business Bank welcomes the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement at today’s Autumn Budget confirming over £1bn of funding for the Bank to continue its programmes supporting access to finance for smaller businesses and thereby driving sustainable economic growth across the UK.

The Chancellor announced additional support for smaller businesses in the form of housing guarantee schemes to support the private housing market, which includes an increase in guarantee capacity of the Bank’s ENABLE Build programme to support further finance for smaller house builders, and allocated funding to the Growth Guarantee Scheme, the successor to the Recovery Loan Scheme.

The announcement includes funding for Start Up Loans over the next financial year as well as additional funding for three of the Bank’s equity programmes that back innovative, high growth businesses and early-stage start-ups.

In line with the ambition of the Invest in Women Taskforce to expand access to funding for female entrepreneurs, the British Business Bank will invest £50m in female-led funds through its existing programmes.

This ongoing commitment to the Bank complements the announcement at the International Investment Summit which confirmed the establishment of the British Growth Partnership to encourage more UK pension fund investment into the UK’s fastest growing and most innovative companies. In addition, reforms announced to the British Business Bank’s financial framework will put its £7.9bn for commercial programmes on a permanent footing, meaning the Bank can flexibly re-invest in the long-term to further increase its impact.

We welcome today’s announcement by the Chancellor which is a further demonstration of the confidence in the British Business Bank to deliver access to finance for smaller businesses across the UK to help them start, scale and grow.

Today’s package of measures will provide more guarantees to housebuilders, more loans to start up businesses, more funding to the UK’s high growth innovative companies, support for businesses to recover and grow, and to maximise women’s contribution to the economy.

Louis Taylor CEO, British Business Bank

ENABLE Build

The Chancellor announced additional support for smaller businesses in the form of housing guarantee schemes to support the private housing market, which includes an increase in guarantee capacity of the Bank’s ENABLE Build programme to support further finance for smaller house builders. This will increase the credit available for smaller housebuilders, helping to support the building of thousands of new UK homes. ENABLE Build has supported the finance to build thousands of new homes across the UK since 2021.

Start Up Loans

The government will provide funding for the Bank to continue the Start Up Loans programme. Start Up Loans delivers financial and business support to new businesses and aspiring under-represented UK entrepreneurs who have struggled to secure finance.

Future Fund: Breakthrough

The government will increase funding for the £425m Future Fund: Breakthrough programme to co-invest in high-growth, innovative firms.

The programme, delivered by the Bank’s commercial subsidiary, British Patient Capital, makes equity co-investments with private sector investors in growth stage R&D-intensive UK companies operating in breakthrough technology sectors. Future Fund: Breakthrough supports the growth of the UK’s most innovative companies and will help to provide an investment pipeline to pension fund investment through the work to develop the British Growth Partnership.

Life Sciences Investment Programme

The government will increase funding for the £200m Life Sciences Investment Programme. The Life Sciences Investment Programme is designed to address the growth equity finance gap faced by high-potential UK life sciences companies. Through the programme, managed by British Patient Capital, the Bank makes cornerstone commitments to later stage life sciences venture growth funds with a strong UK focus.

Regional Angels Programme

The government will provide funding for the Regional Angels Programme to continue its aim of reducing regional imbalances in access to early-stage equity finance for smaller businesses across the UK. Managed by British Business Investments, the £285m programme seeks to increase the aggregate amount of early-stage equity capital that is available to smaller businesses with high growth potential across the UK, focusing on those outside London.

Invest in Women Taskforce

The Bank is expanding access to funding for female entrepreneurs and will invest £50m into female-led funds through its existing programmes. This investment will support the aims of the Invest in Women Taskforce, which is an industry led, government backed initiative committed to increasing finance for female entrepreneurs. 

Further Information

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Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank  

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support over £17.4bn 1 of finance to almost 64,000 2 smaller businesses.

As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.

The British Business Bank is also responsible for administering the government’s three Coronavirus loan schemes and its Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4bn in finance to 1.67m businesses. These schemes are now closed to new applications.

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. Wholly owned by HM government, the Bank and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at www.british-business-bank.co.uk.

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