Businesses: Start-ups

Debate between Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes and Lord Marland

Monday 8th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

There is no doubt that the banks are not lending to the extent to which the Government would want, and this is something that we are looking at very closely. However, we cannot castigate banks and make sure that they increase their capital and at the same time ask them to increase their lending, so I understand the problem that the banks have. I could list loads of initiatives: we are spending £1 billion in the new business bank, and we have the new enterprise allowances, which are worth £80 million. We have Smart loan schemes up to £75 million, and we are mentoring people through Mentorsme. We have the growth accelerator to which I referred earlier and the enterprise finance guarantee, through which £800 million has been awarded so far. I am actually quite grateful for this question, as noble Lords can tell, and I hope that my answer satisfies the noble Lord.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords, my noble friend has given the House some very good news indeed, but would he not agree that it is just as important to keep new businesses open as to open them, and to do so in many cases without the more onerous regulations under the Equality Act?

[Lord Marland]

There is no doubt that the two great threats to business are regulation and, of course, taxation. We are committed to reducing the level of regulation through our Red Tape Challenge. Of course, the most marvellous thing that the Lord Chancellor has done is to show a very clear pathway for the reduction in corporation tax—it is headlined down to 22% in two years’ time—which will make it the lowest in the G20. That is a really significant boost to business. For SMEs it is 20%, which is a very encouraging target.

Energy: Gas Supplies

Debate between Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes and Lord Marland

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

I think the noble Baroness touches on the problem of Europe agreeing our tariffs for the renewable heat incentive where we propose aggressive and supportive tariffs for people in biomass and creating biomass boilers. They were rejected by the European Union, which said that they were unfair. We have looked at them again in earnest and certainly by the end of November we shall have responded to the EU with a negotiated position. We are deeply committed to it. As the noble Baroness rightly pointed out, it is fundamental to our energy security supply that we wean ourselves off oil in particular and coal, which are no longer supplied by ourselves.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords, to depart briefly from the bonhomie, will my noble friend tell his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy from me that it took me three months on two separate occasions to change from British Gas to another supplier? To say that people are lazy not to change means that what happens in the real world is completely beyond his comprehension.

[Lord Marland]

The noble Baroness is of course known for her energy and it is not surprising that she is playing the markets. We completely agree with that. It is amazing what happens on the internet these days. This is obviously a matter for Ofgem, we are concerned that it frees up the markets so that the noble Baroness and all of us can take full advantage of competitive terms out there. Rest assured, we march shoulder to shoulder in a bonhomous way, even if she does not think so.