Lord Cotter
Main Page: Lord Cotter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the noble Lord will know that my right honourable friend in another place, the Secretary of State, is for ever speaking to and with businesses. Yes, of course we know that we need a predictable tax system to reward endeavour; we know that we need better access to both debt and equity finance; and we know that we need to reduce red tape. We are working hard on all of that.
Lord Cotter
My Lords, other support for small businesses is intended to come through local enterprise partnerships. Will the Minister take on board concerns that not enough small businesses—not in sufficient force—are being involved in local enterprise partnerships throughout the country? This is of great concern. Surely this should be part of the approval process that the Minister has to go through when he sets up the local enterprise partnerships in the first place.
Baroness Wilcox
The evidence is that we have been overwhelmed by the number of bids that have come in. For the second round that we are in now, there is an enormous number of bids, which is very heartening. It is competitive, and people are doing awfully well with it. I hope that I can speak later to the noble Lord and reassure him on this with the evidence that we have.