Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Peter Grant
Main Page: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)Department Debates - View all Peter Grant's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
Kwasi Kwarteng
Obviously, I am not familiar with the exact details that the hon. Lady refers to. What I can point out is that in her constituency of Central Ayrshire, banks have provided something like £37 million of business loans, but I would be very interested to hear the specifics of that case and to see what we can do to meet those concerns.
Peter Grant [V]
In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), the Secretary of State claimed that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs does not have the information necessary to distinguish between an active, working owner-director of a small business, and an absentee shareholder of a big business who contributes no part to the running of the business. HMRC may not have all that information, but Companies House definitely does and most of it is on public record, so can the Minister tell us what discussions his Department has had with Companies House in the last seven months with a view to using that information to identify the million or so small businesses that have been deliberately excluded from Government support up until now?
Kwasi Kwarteng
We are in constant contact with Companies House and other sources of information relating to businesses. With regard to the specifics, I am not as familiar with those charges as the hon. Gentleman, but again I point out that something like £30 million of loan money—of credit—has been supplied to companies in his constituency.