Businesses and the Regions

As I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier, this very day the Chancellor and my noble Friend the Secretary of State are meeting the European Investment Bank and other banks to progress this matter, and I assure him that it will be done with all due speed. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) spoke about the value of having representation abroad for a rural area such as his and also raised the important issue of access to finance. As the Chancellor said at Treasury questions earlier, this point is taken extremely seriously by the Government. The hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) agreed with her party leader that the RDAs should be scrapped. My only point with regard to the benefits and costs to the east of England of various expenditures is that the east of England, too, will benefit from increased expenditure on housing. I suspect that housing is an issue in the east of England and the £1 billion package announced last month will bring benefit to the area. On small businesses and employment, raised by the hon. Member for Broxbourne, not only are there significantly more small businesses in the country than there were a decade ago, but they employ 1.5 million more people than they did a decade ago. We have more small businesses and we have more employment in those businesses thanks to the stable economy and growth that we have enjoyed. In conclusion, we will keep working with both banks and businesses to see the economy through the coming months. Question put and agreed to. Resolved,"That this House has considered the matter of businesses and the regions."