Land Registry is currently finalising the Annual Report and Accounts for 2015/16. Once the accounts have been finalised and audited by the National Audit Office, Any payments made will disclosed in their Annual Report and Accounts for 2015/16.

It is not possible fully to disaggregate UK Trade and Investment’s budget for all its work in each overseas market. The overall budget will be made up of costs incurred in country and funds that are not market specific.

Increasing trade and growth through exports, to all overseas markets, is a key factor in the Government’s long-term economic plan. Government departments are working together to support UK businesses looking to take advantage of overseas opportunities and to create a strong business environment that allows them to flourish both at home and overseas. A key part of this work is to identify export opportunities, many of which are based around the needs of new high-growth and emerging markets.

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is at the heart of this work and the budget allocation for this activity will be set out in the UKTI Annual Report and Accounts 2015/16.

Savings will broadly be delivered through implementing a new digital infrastructure to provide cost-effective access to export services; contractual efficiencies; and prioritising market and sector opportunities that will add most value to UK export levels. This is about being more efficient and delivering for UK businesses, including through enhancing direct support and developing the private sector market.

HM Treasury has recognised the importance of the exports agenda by agreeing that £175m of further proposed savings between 2016-17 and 2019-20 should be reinvested in priority areas. The Government is committed to driving a step-change in UK exports and the reinvestment secured to refocus UK Trade & Investment will help us deliver this.

To fulfil their overseas and UK travel commitments, there is a dedicated budget for the Trade Envoys.

Total cost of the programme to date has been £424,529

British Business Bank’s investment in Funding Circle is one of a portfolio of investments managed by the commercial arm of the bank – British Business Bank Investments Ltd. To date, £60m has been committed to Funding Circle, an amount which has supported over 7,000 businesses. The investment contributes a financial return in line with the performance of the wider portfolio.

Financial assistance under the Tradeshow Access Programme is only offered to companies whose products comply with the United Kingdom’s strict export control legislation and in respect of all relevant international treaties and obligations.

There has been no formal assessment of potential risks to human rights of the Tradeshow Access Programme. However, companies using the programme are bound by UK law and exports are made in accordance with the UK’s strict export control legislation and in respect of all relevant international treaties and obligations.

Recent figures from the peer-to-peer finance association show that their members had 225,000 loans outstanding in the third quarter of 2015 and that over half of these by value were to businesses. That is a 108,000 increase on the previous year. Other sources such as crowdfunding are growing equally fast, and lending to smaller businesses from the banks has been recovering strongly. 80% of loan and overdraft applications to SMEs were successful in the 18 months to Q3 2015 , up from 68% in Q4 2013 (SME Finance Monitor)

Government funding for the Green Investment Bank (GIB) for the 2016-17 period and beyond has now been announced as part of the current spending review. This is a good settlement for GIB and provides what GIB management wanted by allowing for 100% funding of GIB’s investments to the point of majority sale, assuming a sale in the next financial year.

The Government is taking steps to improve financing opportunities for smaller businesses through the British Business Bank. The Bank is making business finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively and dynamically and is already supporting £2.4 billion of finance to over 40,000 smaller businesses, and participating in a further £3.3 billion of finance to mid-cap businesses. It aims to facilitate up to £10 billion of finance by 2019. In addition, measures in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 will require banks to refer customers who have been declined for a loan to alternative finance providers via designated platforms. This is expected to provide a significant boost to diversity and competition in business lending and is due to be implemented later this year.

The administrative budget associated with the BIS Automotive sector team for the last five financial years is illustrated below.

*Includes funding for the Advanced Manufacturing Showcasing team who came under the same administrative budget for these years.

^ Includes one FTE on loan to the Office for Low Emission Vehicles

For 2016/17 and beyond, UKTI will be reviewing how the Tradeshow Access Programme is aligned with other Export Services as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement. It is therefore not possible to confirm the budget at this stage

Land Registry total revenue for 2014/15 was £297.1m. Land Registry paid a dividend of £19.1m to the Exchequer.

As a Trading Fund, Land Registry is subject to government rules set out in Managing Public Money. This specifies that the charges it makes for its core statutory functions should cover its full costs, 3.5% to reflect the cost of capital used in providing services. As a Trading Fund, Land Registry is required to return the charge for cost of capital to the Consolidated Fund as a dividend. In 2014/15 this ordinary dividend was £19.1million.

In 2014/15 Land Registry also paid a special dividend of £100million to the Exchequer. This reflected over-recovery from customers in previous years as a result of higher than forecast volume of transactions.

SSI UK had been in financial difficulties ever since it reopened the Redcar plant in 2012. This is a company that unfortunately made significant losses. In 2012, it lost £275million. In 2013, it lost £193.5million. In 2014, it lost £81million. And up to the end of June in 2015, it had lost £92.5m

The planned budgets (2016/17 to 2020/21) and locations of the four Centres for Agricultural Innovation are:

Centre for Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) - headquarters in York at the National AgriFood Innovation Campus in Sand Hutton

Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) - headquarters in York at the National AgriFood Innovation Campus in Sand Hutton

Agricultural Engineering Precision Innovation Centre (Agri-EPI) - hubs in Edinburgh, Harper Adams University (Shropshire) and Cranfield University (Bedfordshire)

Centre for Agricultural Informatics (Agrimetrics) - headquarters in Harpenden (Hertfordshire) at Rothamsted Research

According to NESTA, peer-to-peer business lending in the UK grew at a rate of 250 per cent annually between 2012 and 2014. The Peer-to-Peer Finance Association publishes quarterly updates, which show net new lending of £251m in the third quarter of 2015 of which £91m was to small businesses. Although the number of businesses is not stated, Funding Circle (which accounts for £66m of the £91m net new lending) had 10,755 borrowers at the end of the quarter. The total is therefore likely to be close to 15,000.

Equity crowdfunded deal numbers and investment totals are less readily available. The British Business Bank cites market investment data recorded by Beauhurst which show that in the first half of 2014, £24m was raised across 101 crowdfunded equity investments. Using survey data, NESTA has produced a higher estimate of £31m for the same period and £84m for 2014 as a whole.

At 1 April 2015 the UK Trade & Investment Defence and Security Organisation had 140 staff-in-post. As at 1 April the 2015-16 budget for UKTI DSO was £9.75M NET.

The Government recognises that new businesses can encounter difficulties in obtaining the finance they need to start-up or grow. However I am encouraged that net lending to smaller businesses has been recovering strongly since the end of 2014. The Bank of England has reported that credit conditions for SMEs seeking finance are improving and the SME Finance Monitor shows that 80% of SME loan and overdraft applications were successful in the 18 months to 2015 Q3, up from 68% in Q4 2013.

Latest figures show that net SME lending from banks participating in the Funding for Lending Scheme grew by £675m in the third quarter and the Bank of England recently announced that allowances earned by banks for increasing their net lending under the scheme will be available to draw down for a further two years. The government also continues to fund start-up loans, with more than 33,000 loans worth over £180 million issued so far and a target to deliver 75,000 loans by the end of the parliament.

I am also encouraged by our growing alternative finance sector, with the UK the leading fin tech centre of Europe.

A recent report from the Legatum Institute rated the UK as the best country in the EU in which to start a business and the government will continue to back our small businesses to start and grow.

UK Export Finance (UKEF) has established a cadre of Export Finance Advisors based around the UK so exporters can access advice locally where they are seeking finance for export transactions which they are unable to obtain from the private market.

UKEF offers products to assist SME exporters in such circumstances where the risks are acceptable, including an Export Working Capital Scheme. It is looking to enhance its products using new Statutory powers that came into force earlier in 2015. It is also planning to improve accessibility to those products delivered through banks and simplify documentation, including application forms and associated processes, where appropriate, by digital means, that should help speed-up decision-taking and response times.

The Government is currently consulting on simplifying the anti-bribery Declarations and Undertakings exporters are required to provide UKEF. UKEF liaises with the British Business Bank to ensure each other’s products are complementary and fill gaps in the provisions of support where this is unavailable from the private market.