Andrew Miller
Main Page: Andrew Miller (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)Department Debates - View all Andrew Miller's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Vince Cable
As it happens, I met the chief executive of RBS a couple of days ago. It is making good progress on sorting out the problems with its balance sheet and returning to normal business lending. I have been pointing out for quite a long time that the position of RBS in an independent Scotland would be very difficult, since its balance sheet is 10 times the size of the Scottish economy. It could hardly operate within Scotland as an independent country.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Under the seventh framework programme, our universities were incredibly successful at accessing money, but our SMEs were not. Under Horizon 2020—the next programme —what steps will Her Majesty’s Government take to improve the lot of SMEs? Secondly, will the Secretary of State confirm that universities such as Edinburgh, which were hugely successful under framework 7, will not be successful if the vote goes the wrong way next week?
Vince Cable
On the hon. Gentleman’s latter point, he is right that Scottish institutions benefit disproportionately from UK research because of the excellence of their work and that they would no longer be guaranteed access to UK funding streams in an independent Scotland, although I hope they would maintain their excellence. We will certainly try to ensure that SMEs are taken properly into account in the competition for European funding. His point is a good one.