Manufacturing: Economic Policy

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

My noble friend Lord Courtown speaks well for SMEs, as he always does. We are trying to ensure the flow of credit to viable SME manufacturers. This is essential for support and growth and is a core priority for government. Some of the things we are doing to help include: continuing the enterprise finance guarantee until 2014-15, potentially enabling more than £2 billion of additional SME funding; continuing the enterprise capital funds programme to provide £300 million of venture capital for early stage innovation SMEs with high growth potential; and working with the British Banking Association on a range of commitments to assist SMEs with accessing the finance that they need. In addition, the Government are taking forward a package of investment readiness support for high-growth potential SMEs through the Business Coaching for Growth programme. My gosh, we should not fail with all that going on.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the House will have noted that the Minister agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, that the single most positive factor in favour of manufacturing at present is the decline of the exchange rate. What does the Minister say in response to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility which has reported that government policies on the economy and in particular on manufacturing are likely to have a minimal effect?

[Baroness Wilcox]

My Lords, I repeat what the Chancellor said when we started on this rocky road last summer: we face the deepest recession that we have ever faced and we are going to go through very choppy waters. I have no doubt that, if I read out the hundreds of words that I have here to the noble Lord, we would agree that there are times when we get it right and times when we do not, but at the moment we are on the right trend.