HC Deb 31 July 1997 vol 299 c498W
Mr. Rooney

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many people in each of the last five years qualified for assistance on(a) the enterprise allowance scheme and (b) the business start-up scheme in each standard region and Great Britain as a whole; and what was the annual expenditure in each year. [12172]

Mr. Andrew Smith

The enterprise allowance scheme was replaced in 1991–92 by the business start-up scheme which, in turn, was absorbed within the single regeneration budget in 1994–95. The precise information requested is not available, but starts by Government office region are available for 1994–95 and are given in table 1 and total expenditure and number of starts in England for each year of the programme are given in table 2.

Table 1: Business start-up scheme: Starts by English region 1994–95
Region Starts
South East 2,393
London 3,081
Eastern 1,925
South West 2,801
West Midlands 1,576
East Midlands 3,042
Yorkshire and The Humber 3,402
Merseyside 1,356
North West 3,058
North East 1,602

align="center">Table2: Business start-up scheme: Starts and expenditure in England
Year Starts Expenditure (£ million)
1992–93 33,600 62.0
1993–94 34,700 82.0
1994–95 24,236 63.8