Banks: Business Lending

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Wednesday 28th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords—

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, is my noble friend not concerned that the massive increase in quantitative easing has not been reflected at all in the figures for the money supply, which has actually gone down? It is not surprising that the banks are not lending more if the money supply is declining. What does my noble friend think ought to be done about this?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, my noble friend has raised this theme on a number of occasions. It is for the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England to decide how it operates the asset purchase facility—so-called quantitative easing. What we are talking about this morning is how we increase the supply of net lending by banks to United Kingdom businesses. As I said, the Government announced in the Budget a range of measures and have set out an important discussion document, to which I hope noble Lords who wish to will contribute their views by 20 September.