Business of the House

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

And, indeed, on other parts of the country. I note the request for a statement from my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). I do not anticipate a statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the moment, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we constantly learn from what happens and apply those lessons in ensuring that we minimise disruption to the public and business during severe weather.

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

David Green, director of Civitas, said today:

“Labour is showing the way to the present Government, which has shown no imagination in tackling the problems facing SMEs and has ignored too many good ideas.”

Given the failure of the Government’s Project Merlin and other such programmes, may we have a debate on the only growth plan—that is, Labour’s growth plan—including a British investment bank, regionalised banking and business lending?

[Mr Lansley]

I know David Green, of course, and I suspect that he would not subscribe to the Labour party’s view of how these things should be tackled. None the less, we are determined to support small and medium-sized enterprises. We will push to ensure that small businesses can get access to the finance they need, as we did through Project Merlin, and we are supporting that through the funding for lending scheme and the finance guarantees. The tax measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has put in place, including an exceptional tenfold increase in investment allowances, will support that. If the hon. Gentleman were at the conference being held by my old friends at the British Chambers of Commerce over the road today—I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills will be there—he would hear their ideas. I know that many of them support what the Government are doing, including not only the deficit reduction but our infrastructure support and the business bank being set up by my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary.