The Economy debate
Philip Dunne questions the Chancellor over the increase in business rates and also highlights a local business which has gone into administration having been unable to access the enterprise finance guarantee scheme.
Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): The Chancellor says that he wants to help businesses. Why, therefore, did businesses up and down the country last week receive new business rate demands significantly greater-in some cases, two or three times greater-than those they had paid the previous year? How is that helping business?
Mr. Darling: I shall come on to that in a moment. The hon. Gentleman supports his party in believing that we should not be spending any extra money. Time and again, Opposition Members say they want more of this and more of that, but they are not prepared to find the money for it. I believe it is important to support businesses, and one way in which we do so is by supporting the wider economy. When we consider what we have done-the £20 billion that went into the economy last year, the automatic payments into the economy through lower tax receipts and higher benefit payments-we see that we have increased such support as a percentage of what we produce. We have provided about the same level of support as the United States, Germany and China-indeed, most countries in the G20 have been prepared to take action because they recognise that it is necessary to support their economies and families and businesses.
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Mr. Dunne: Is my hon. Friend surprised to learn, as I was, that the directors of Technorton, a small business in my constituency that went into administration this morning, laying off several constituents, had been trying for the past few weeks to get access to the enterprise finance guarantee scheme? The scheme is much trumpeted by the Chancellor as one of the few that actually work, but when the directors applied for it, they were told that funding would be available only if they first put in personal guarantees. They had already exhausted those by backing the business, so they looked to the Government for help. None was available, hence the business is now in administration.
Mr. Osborne: I suspect that almost every hon. Member could tell a similar story. The Chancellor sits there and will not even answer the basic question of why the working capital scheme and the loan guarantee scheme, which we have discussed in the House for months, are not operational now that we have reached the end of March. Will he intervene and explain that to the House?
