Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Begg Excerpts
Thursday 2nd February 2012

(12 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mark Prisk Portrait Mr Prisk
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I know that my hon. Friend is a real champion of micro-businesses. The Government have focused on practical measures that help the micro-businesses’ bottom line, but, as she knows, I am happy to consider the legal issues with her and her all-party parliamentary group.

Anne Begg Portrait Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
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On Friday I attended the opening of a micro-business in my constituency, Little Rembrandt’s Café in Ferryhill. That business opened despite the Government and despite the banks, which refused to lend. The owner had to put her own financial security on the line by remortgaging her house. That situation obviously cannot be right, because it is stifling growth in the economy.

Mark Prisk Portrait Mr Prisk
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I understand the hon. Lady’s point. Two thirds of small businesses are able to secure the money that they want, but that is no consolation to those who are not. Perhaps I could write to the hon. Lady about the community development finance institutions, which we have been funding and which are well placed to help the kind of micro-business to which she has referred.