Women and Equalities Committee
22 April 2026
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Women and Equalities Committee House of Commons
00:02 - 00:33
Speaker 1
Order. Order. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Women in Equality Select Committee. Today, we're holding an oral evidence session on female entrepreneurship. We will hear from Lord Stockwood, minister for investment Blair MacDougall, MP, Minister for Small Business and Economic Transformation Kristen McLeod, Chief Strategy Officer at the British Business Bank and Paula Crofts, Director of the Small Business Growth at DBT.
Welcome to you all and thank you for coming. And I am going to hand straight over to Alex.
00:33 - 01:00
Speaker 2
Thank you and thank you all for your time today. I'd like to start by asking the ministers. All female teams received just 1.75% of UK equity investment in 2025, down from 2% in the previous two years. Why do you think the government's stated commitment to women led businesses has not led to an increase in the proportion of equity invested in them?
01:02 - 01:46
Speaker 3
Well, yeah, go ahead. I I kick off. I mean, I think the first thing I think to acknowledge is it's a a very long standing societal problem that we are we are running at here. But I would I would say we are one, we are running at it, and I'm sure we'll talk today about all of the the interventions programs that we are deploying in in support of of of trying to remedy the problem. But I would also say I think there's something in the nature of the type of interventions we are pursuing which are about, rather than short term quick fixes, are about trying to deal with those structural problems that hold back women entrepreneurs.
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