Government failing to support budding female entrepreneurs "Supporting women in the economy is vital for our economic recovery, as well as the progress of women," she said. A report by the Women's Enterprise Task Force which ran from 2006-2009 found that businesses run by women contribute £130 billion annually to the UK economy - incredible considering that women are only half as likely as men to set up a business to begin with. However women I have met who are setting up businesses often have less developed personal networks, less access to finance and they struggle to access to quality business support that meets their needs. We need a new focus on women business owners, which starts by better establishing UK patterns of female entrepreneurship, identifies factors that contribute to higher levels of female entrepreneurship and drives national policies to better support the growth of women-led businesses. Ms Malhotra said that only 32 per cent of early stage entrepreneurial activity in the UK was carried out by women (according to figures from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring Report) and that it was high time the Government put more measures in place, like the US government, to support businesswomen specifically - such as women's business centres. Interestingly Ms Malhotra highlighted figures to show that in London; just 10 per cent of all small and medium-sized businesses are run by women - the lowest rate of all UK regions. The Labour MP for Feltham and Heston is now setting a pilot scheme in her constituency to create a business network to support women in enterprise. The network will research women-led business needs and provide a local mentoring scheme. She will carry out the scheme over the next year and report the findings back to Government. Ms Malhotra told The Telegraph that women were more reluctant entrepreneurs for a range of reasons including: a lack of confidence and necessary skills, a dearth of access to good business networks and the difficulty of balancing being a parent with beginning a business - a burden more often shouldered by mothers over fathers. In 2011 a Government survey found that the growth in number of female entrepreneurs had stalled and that their numbers decline the more successful the ventures they set up become. It discovered that only 14 per cent of small and medium-sized firms are women-led, the same as in 2007, the authoritative government survey of 4,500 businesses found. While 21 per cent of start-ups in 2010 involved female founders, the proportion fell to 13 per cent for small firms employing more than 10 people and only eight per cent of all medium-sized companies.