§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the President of the Board of Trade how many grants representing what total sum and with what average value have been awarded under the single regeneration scheme for business start-ups in each region of Britain. [7698]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordI have been asked to reply.
Information in the form requested is not available.
The single regeneration budget challenge fund provides support to local partnerships for schemes which promote the wider regeneration of their chosen area. Under the first two rounds of the challenge fund, 238 schemes have included plans to assist business start-ups. Over their 26W lifetime of up to seven years, and subject to satisfactory progress on delivery plans, these schemes stand to receive some £1.7 billion in challenge fund support towards a wide range of economic, environmental and social measures including an estimated 80,000 new business start-ups.
Following the Chancellor's Budget statement, provision of £250 million has been made for third and fourth challenge fund bidding rounds in 1997–98 and 1998–99 respectively. These will provide further opportunities for business start-up support.