HC Deb 18 December 2001 vol 377 c260W
Mr. Bercow

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many companies in the constituency of Buckingham have received funding from(a) Smart, (b) the Phoenix Fund, (c) the Enterprise Fund, (d) the Regional Venture Capital Scheme, (e) the Incubator Fund, (f) Carbon Trust, (g) the Regional Innovation Fund and (h) the Innovative Clusters Fund in the last 12 months; and what the total level of funding received from each scheme was. [22526]

Nigel Griffiths

(a) There is one current Smart project, which started in 1999 with a value of £308,000, and one new Smart award with a value of £45,000 was awarded in 2001.

  1. (b) None. The Phoenix development fund seeks to promote innovative approaches to business support in deprived areas. It does not provide funding to individual businesses.
  2. (c) The Enterprise Fund is the generic name for a number of programmes, including the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme and The UK High Technology Fund, designed to improve small businesses access to finance. Funding is not provided directly to businesses, but through intermediaries, as a result, companies in Buckingham benefiting directly from funding from the Enterprise Fund cannot be identified.
  3. (d) The Regional Venture Capital Fund, as it is not yet operational in the South East region.
  4. (e) None. This is a new initiative providing funding to establish incubator support. It does not provide funding to individual businesses.
  5. (f) None. This is a new initiative, which will soon provide support to businesses. It does not provide funding to individual businesses.
  6. (g) The constituency of Buckingham falls within the region covered by SEEDA which has been allocated RIF funding of £3.2 million in 2001–02.
  7. (h) The ICF operated during 2000–01 during which time SEEDA was allocated £1.66 million of funding.

RIF and the now defunct ICF are not typical centrally administered DTI schemes. No funding goes directly from DTI to any companies. Both are funding streams provided to the Regional Development Agencies, which are non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs).