(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a supply chain issue. We are hearing good news from the automobile and aerospace sectors, with the large primes, such as Tata, Rolls-Royce and Airbus, making large investments. However, we also need to attract back the supply chains, which is already happening, particularly in the car industry. We have bodies that co-operate with industry in both those sectors: the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) chairs one of them and I chair the other. We are therefore working actively with industry to attract the supply chains back to the UK.
Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the work of the high-value manufacturing technology and innovation centre, which has had a display in Parliament for the past two days, and especially a business in my constituency, Advanced Composites, on the work that it does as part of that? Does he agree with the strategy and aims that it has set out, especially on having a strategy for how we can get manufacturing back to being 20% of gross domestic product by 2020?
Yes, we are fighting a historical trend, because, under the previous Government, and certainly over the past decade, manufacturing contracted as a share of the economy more rapidly than in any other western country and we lost a third of the work force. We have to retrieve that, and one of the main ways of doing so is through promoting innovation. The first innovation centre, as my colleague rightly points out, is the manufacturing technology innovation centre, which has seven campuses. Composites is one of those core technologies being developed, which I very much welcome.
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons Chamber5. What recent assessment he has made of the level of lending by banks to small businesses.
Figures published in May by the Bank of England show that the UK’s five largest banks lent £16.8 billion to UK small and medium-sized enterprises in the first quarter. That fails to meet the targets in the Merlin agreement and is obviously disappointing. We will continue to monitor lending closely over the year. We reserve the right to revisit the agreement if banks continue to miss the targets.
Many small businesses in my constituency complain that when they ask banks about funding, they are told not to bother applying because it would only attract interest in their existing facilities and that those may well be withdrawn instead. What can the Government do to stop banks doing that and then claiming that they cannot meet the targets they have agreed to because of a lack of applications?
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Home Secretary will announce the results of the consultation very soon, and I am sure that it will give the hon. Gentleman the assurances that he wants on inter-company transfers.
T7. Will the Minister agree to meet a social enterprise in my constituency whose future is threatened by the draconian attitude of RBS, which seeks nearly £400,000 in penalties for a minor breach, even though a non-nationalised bank is willing to refinance its loan fully?