Business of the House

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, particularly in relation to his constituents, that will have been recognised by Members across the House. Today, the Government have published the draft Anti-social Behaviour Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The reforms in the Bill will put victims first, and they include a new community trigger that will empower victims and communities to demand that local agencies deal with persistent problems where they have previously failed to do so. I think that my hon. Friend will find that particularly relevant to the circumstances he has described. The measures will also speed up the eviction of antisocial tenants by introducing a faster route to eviction for the most serious criminal or antisocial behaviour. The Home Affairs Committee is looking forward to undertaking pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill and producing a final report with recommendations in February.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

We know that the Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting that the UK economy will contract by 0.1% in this quarter, and that it believes that the economy will contract this year as a whole. May we have a debate on business lending? It was confirmed to me on 11 December by the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), that business lending had contracted by 2.8% this year, and high streets such as the one in Guisborough in my constituency are really suffering due to a lack of funding to business.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman will know that this Government are literally leaving no stone unturned, as Michael Heseltine might have put it, to ensure that we support lending to businesses—especially to small and medium-sized businesses. That is why the funding for lending scheme is so important; it is clearly getting going and significant amounts are starting to be lent as a consequence. It is also why my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills have together been pushing for the business bank, which will be able to leverage additional specific lending to small and medium-sized businesses—not only through that bank, but through many of the new challenger banks that are giving support in that market.

The hon. Gentleman mentions the latest OBR report. He might recognise that the OBR has published updated figures on the scale of the recession under the last Labour Government, showing a total loss of gross domestic product of 6.3%. We are having to live with the economic consequences of Labour, and I think the Labour party should start from an understanding of the recession and the depth of debt it left this country.