Lord Roberts of Conwy
Main Page: Lord Roberts of Conwy (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Wilcox
We have of course created a new enterprise zone in that area especially for this. These are terrible times, and the idea of seeing any jobs go at the moment, certainly in the private sector, goes against everything we wish for growth. That enterprise zone is there and we will put every help we can into that area. The Government’s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and among industries. We will therefore look very carefully at any other incidence of this happening.
Lord Roberts of Conwy
Is my noble friend satisfied that there is sufficient demand for loans on the part of small businesses?
Baroness Wilcox
It is quite amazing how much demand there is from small businesses for loans. The great thing about small and medium-sized businesses is that they tend to be very optimistic. I grew up in the world of small and medium-sized enterprises, where, against all the odds, you would very often see someone setting up a business in an area where everybody else said it could not possibly have happened. Yes, we are very encouraged by the amount of requests we are getting.