Small Business Growth (Hazel Grove)

Sajid Javid Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) for securing this debate and for presenting his case so eloquently.

All hon. Members are keen to see successful businesses in our constituencies, whether in Hazel Grove or Bromsgrove. We recognise the importance of businesses. Whether they are small, medium or multinational, they provide jobs for our communities. Indeed, only with the help of successful British businesses will we be able to deal with the economic challenges that our country faces. I am therefore glad to have the opportunity to discuss retail banks and small businesses, and business finance more generally.

My right hon. Friend has shared some interesting case studies of the difficulties that some of his constituency companies have faced. He mentioned four companies, including Isaac Hirst Fine Furniture, JD Hughes and Tribourne Catering. I am sure he understands that it would not be appropriate for me to try to address the company issues he has, but his message comes through clearly from the illustrative examples he has picked.

I would like to start by talking about some of the action that the Government have already taken, and then to answer some of the excellent questions that my right hon. Friend has asked. The Government have taken a number of steps, and the first that they took on coming to power was to set up Project Merlin, which began in 2011. In that year, UK banks lent a total of £214 billion to British businesses. That represented a 20% increase on 2010, exceeding the lending target by £24 billion. On top of that, the national loan guarantee scheme enabled businesses to receive a 1% discount on loans, compared with the price of loans outside the scheme. As a result, over 28,000 cheaper loans, worth over £4.6 billion, have been committed to businesses. Of those loans, over £2.7 billion has already been used by businesses to help them to invest and grow.

One of the Government’s most ambitious schemes is the funding for lending scheme. Also referred to as the FLS, this joint project between the Government and the Bank of England was launched in July this year. It works by reducing banks’ funding pressures in return for increased lending to businesses and households. The FLS creates strong incentives for banks to increase lending to UK households and businesses, and as a result of the scheme, we have already seen a number of participating banks launch new and discounted SME loan products. The scheme is transparent, and the Bank of England will publish data on the amount that each bank has drawn from the scheme and how much they have lent to UK households and businesses.

Other Government measures include the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, which enables lenders to provide debt finance to small businesses that can demonstrate that they have capacity to repay the loan in full but do not have sufficient security. The EFG has already supported £300 million of lending in 2011-12 and, subject to demand, is due to provide over £2 billion in total over the next four years.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the newly announced business bank, which is in the process of being created. A number of the bank’s functions will be operational from spring 2013, with the institution becoming fully operational by the following autumn. The bank aims to address gaps in business finance by drawing together the Government’s existing initiatives under one roof in an integrated service to all firms, and £1 billion of additional capital has been allocated to the business bank to stimulate the market for long-term capital. At least £300 million of that will be co-invested over the next two years in channels that will diversify the sources of finance available to SMEs, such as non-bank lenders.

As my right hon. Friend has rightly pointed out, the public want to know that the money from all those schemes is finding its way from banks to businesses, so let me say a word or two about the importance of transparency. I believe that we are going further than any Government to ensure transparency in lending, especially in relation to the lending that the Government are helping to provide. The Government will be working with industry—through the British Bankers Association and other interested parties—to get a commitment from the banks that they will publish more granular data. We have agreed to work with industry to collate and publish lending data that are disaggregated by institution and presented on a postcode-level basis. The Government will take this forward as an urgent and pressing matter.

In reiterating our commitment to make progress in this area, I confirm tonight that, should our negotiations with industry fail to deliver for any reason, the Government will introduce amendments to the Banking Reform Bill to ensure that the data, in disaggregated and postcode-specific form, are published. That will enable my right hon. Friend to see exactly how much the banks are lending to small businesses in Hazel Grove. Indeed, it will allow all Members to see similarly detailed data. I hope that my right hon. Friend agrees that that will be a welcome development.

I want to say something about the appeals process, which I do not think is given enough air time and which is not as well known as it should be. It is important for businesses that fail to secure loans to be given clear and honest information about the reasons for that. In April 2011, the major UK banks established the appeals process as one of the 17 commitments of the business finance taskforce. The process allows any business with a turnover of up to £25 million that has been declined any form of lending to appeal against the decision, for any reason, to the participating bank concerned. If an appeal is raised, the decision will be reviewed by a second person from the bank who was not involved in the original decision. The results of the first year of the process show that in 40% of cases in which a decline was appealed against, a lending agreement with which both parties were satisfied was reached.

I am not sure whether the four companies in my right hon. Friend’s constituency have tried to use the process, but if not, I certainly recommend it. He said in his speech that he had raised the issue with some of the banks, and mentioned the “ambassador to the north” from Lloyds TSB. I hope he agrees that it is worth while for the Government to advertise the appeals process and ensure that enough people know about it. Better promotion is needed, so that every firm knows that it has somewhere to turn.

We must bear in mind, however, that banks and other lenders must make sensible decisions about whether to lend, how much to lend and on what terms to lend. Lenders consider a number of factors when making such decisions, including the cost of obtaining funds and the risk that some borrowers will default. Both these factors have been heightened by the financial crisis in the eurozone, and that may have contributed to changes in the way in which some banks have approached their lending activities. Decisions about whether to lend to specific businesses remain commercial decisions for banks to make. It is important for them to have in place the correct lending criteria, so that we do not see a return to the excessive balance sheet growth that we saw during the financial crisis.

Towards the end of his speech, my right hon. Friend suggested that a meeting could be convened between him—along with, perhaps, some representatives from his constituency—and members of the British Bankers Association, including some of the banks that he mentioned this evening. I would be more than happy to write to the BBA and try to convene such a meeting on his behalf, because I believe that it is a sensible idea. Perhaps we can take that up directly later.

The Government believe that it is important for viable businesses that want to invest and grow to have access to the finance that they require in order to do so, and we are therefore pursuing a substantial agenda. I thank my right hon. Friend again for raising this important issue. The Government are well aware that banks play a vital role in serving the economy, and I assure him that we take this issue very seriously.

Question put and agreed to.