Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-03
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, for proposing the new clause, for his survey of finance for small and micro businesses, and for his welcome for some of the positive innovations that there have been in this sector in recent years. It was also extremely useful to have the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Myners, with his great experience in the City and in government, but I also heard the concern of my noble friend Lord Cope about the sweeping nature of the power. It was good to hear the comments of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley The noble Lord has proposed a new duty on the Secretary of State to publish a review on alternative forms of finance available to small and micro businesses within a year of the commencement of this Act. I start by reassuring noble Lords that the Government share their conviction that small and micro businesses need greater access to alternative forms of finance. Lending to small business, as has been said, is still concentrated within the four largest banks, which account for almost 90% of business loans by volume. Overall rejection rates for loans and overdrafts are declining, but still stand at around one in four over the past 18 months. Access to appropriately regulated alternative sources of finance can provide a real counterbalance to the mainstream banking sector I fully agree with the noble Lord that we should seek transparency on the availability of alternative forms of finance. I disagree, however, that a new review is necessary as it would duplicate existing publications on small business finance. One of these publications is the British Business Bank’s report on small business finance markets, which was published in December 2014. Its main focus was on the increasing use of alternative forms of finance by small business. I believe that this is what noble Lords are largely seeking from this clause. I can confirm that the British Business Bank intends to publish its small business finance report annually. I am happy to commit today to place this report in the Library of the House when it is published again this year The British Business Bank’s publication sits alongside a number of other independent pieces of research into this important subject, including the Bank of England’s quarterly Trends in Lending report, last published in January, the quarterly independent SME Finance Monitor, most recently published last week and Professor Russel Griggs’s report on the banks’ lending appeals process, published this week My response to the noble Lord would not be complete without touching on an even more important report—the work of the Competition and Markets Authority, the new, independent competition regulator. The CMA is conducting a market investigation into the retail banking sector, including the provision of banking services to small businesses. It has a wide range of powers available if it finds there are problems in the sector. The existence of this investigation helps to respond to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Myners. The CMA is due to report by April 2016 and I know that it will be of huge interest to this House. The Government will then respond to any recommendations made within 90 days. Any legislation that follows this response would, of course, be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the usual way. I believe that we should let the regulator do its job and not pre-empt its recommendations with a concurrent review by the Secretary of State of how the banking sector is catering for the needs of SMEs Finally, I draw the noble Lord’s attention to the positive measures in this Bill to promote access to finance. Clause 1 removes a contractual barrier to invoice finance. Clause 4 provides for greater sharing of information through credit reference agencies. Clause 5 provides for the UK’s larger banks to be required to refer rejected finance applicants on to alternative finance providers. These provisions got a good degree of support across the House in Committee. I believe that all these measures will make a real difference to the availability of alternative finance for small business. Given the activity described, I am not convinced that a further report as proposed in this clause would be of merit. I hope that the noble Lord will feel reassured by what I have said and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.