News from The Labour Party

Stephen Timms MP: Osborne’s empty promises are a cruel con

Labour’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Timms MP, responding to George Osborne’s incorrect claims about how business loan guarantee schemes work during Treasury Questions today, said:

“George Osborne’s empty promises will do nothing to help people or business today.

“He has shown he doesn’t understand how business guarantee schemes work when he says it ‘did not add to public expenditure’.

“Such schemes require public spending at the point any participating firm defaults and the bank calls in the guarantee from government.

“The Tories have promised a scheme and then ruled out finding the money to fund it. Promises the Conservatives refuse to pay for are nothing but a cruel con.

“We’re offering real help to businesses – not empty promises from a do nothing Tory party.”

In contrast, the Labour Government is taking action to help businesses:

* Setting up a new HMRC Business Payment Support service to allow any business in temporary financial difficulty to pay their tax bills on a timetable they can afford. This includes VAT, corporation tax, income tax and National Insurance Contributions.

* Deferring the planned increase in the small companies rates of corporation tax.

* Launching the ‘Small Business Guarantee Facility’ – new temporary guarantee scheme enabling up to £1 billion of new Government-supported lending by banks. Allowing businesses to borrow any sum, from £1,000 to £1 million, at cheaper rates and for a longer period.

* A further £1 billion temporary guarantee scheme providing smaller exporters with better access to short-term working capital.

* Working with Regional Development Agencies to provide loan schemes to help businesses experiencing difficulty.

* Launching Business Link, a new easily accessible web portal, to direct credit-worthy SMEs who are experiencing problems accessing credit to the scheme most appropriate for them.

Other news from The Labour Party

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• "We need what you might call 'one nation banking'" - 3 February 2012
• Burnham: "Mental health must move from the edges to the centre of the NHS" - 31 January 2012