Lord Sugar
Main Page: Lord Sugar (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Sugar
My Lords, my question for the Minister is not the one that she was anticipating. She will recall that in my short stint at BIS as an adviser to the Government, I concentrated on the business link centres. At the end of that period, I concluded that they were, frankly, a waste of money. I was told that they cost £250 million per year. Will the Minister give us an update on the status of the business link centres and indicate whether she has come to the same conclusion? Will the money that was given to the business link centres be deployed somewhere else?
Baroness Wilcox
I was not prepared to answer a question on that, but I will of course send an answer to the noble Lord. I would like to reassure him that I think that he would approve of the system that we are using here. It is working. The bids have already levered in £2.5 billion of private sector funding. Maybe he would like to follow carefully how we are proceeding with this sum—and maybe even support us in some ways.