Stella Creasy
Main Page: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)Department Debates - View all Stella Creasy's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Vince Cable
The bank is already succeeding. As I said to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), there has been a very big increase in the lending being made available under the existing schemes and a big growth in equity-related activity. I think he will find that, as the business bank moves forward, we will use the £1.25 billion of new capital from the Treasury to do exactly what it was designed to achieve. I am very positive about the bank’s future.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State admits that there have been problems with the Government’s plans. One area of lending at a local level that has been picking up the pieces and expanding is payday lending to businesses. Does the Secretary of State now accept that his Department was wrong to oppose capping the cost of credit, given that businesses have been ripped off by legal loan sharks as much as consumers?
Vince Cable
The evidence from Bristol university among others, which we support, suggested genuine potential problems with a cap on interest rates, but we have been persuaded, on the balance of evidence, that we should do it. There are good experiences, in places such as Florida in the United States, that we will now seek to apply in the UK. I congratulate the hon. Lady and others on their persistent campaigning on this subject. I think we have now achieved a good outcome.