Small Businesses: Finance

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, heads up our export division. I am absolutely sure that he has this well on his scanner. When he took up his office, he decided not to go abroad first but to go around Great Britain and look at small and medium-sized businesses to see what they needed and what help they could be given. I like to think that one day he will come here and described this himself.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that while the Government are doing a lot of what they can to provide finance, the real issue for small business is the cost of the regulatory burden, this is an unattractive economy for small businesses to operate in, in comparison with others, and what is needed is a programme of regulatory exemptions for small businesses?

[Baroness Wilcox]

As my noble friend knows, we are looking at the regulatory system from top to bottom to see that, wherever possible, we make it easier for people to go to work and to get the job done.