Andrea Leadsom
Main Page: Andrea Leadsom (Conservative - South Northamptonshire)Department Debates - View all Andrea Leadsom's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
The hon. Gentleman is right that small businesses face difficult financing conditions because of the stress in the financial markets and the fact that banks are not able to access funding in the way that they were four or five years ago. That is why we have taken the step of credit easing, which is not something that a Government would do in more normal economic times, and it is why we have the finance partnership and are expanding the enterprise finance guarantee. Those are all designed as Government interventions, using the good credit worthiness that we have earned for this country, to ensure that those lower interest rates can be passed on to small businesses.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that in a banking sector where only up to about 2% of bank balance sheets is invested in the real economy, what we really need is a revolution in competition in that sector? What is he doing to ensure that there will be more new entrants into the banking industry in future?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, which is that the banking industry has become very consolidated in recent years, because of the various mergers and failures during the financial crisis. Our ambition as a Government is to increase competition on the high street, and we took an important step towards that with our decision to sell Northern Rock back into the private sector and to support Virgin Money as a new lender on the high street, but of course other divestments are due to take place, and the ambition in the Vickers report, which we are implementing, is to increase competition.