Pre-Budget Report

My hon. Friend makes a point that I missed out in my peroration. I totally agree with him. I wanted to start with the words of the Prime Minister on 17 November. When he came back triumphant from Washington, he told us that those members of the G20 who were at the conference had agreed to do certain things. He referred in the House of Commons to the"““full disclosure of toxic assets””—[Official Report, 17 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 22.]" The idea was that that disclosure would be planned for, and revealed, by 31 March next year, but that is too late; it is too long a period. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), a former Chancellor, made the point that we need to have some idea of where we are with the toxic debt in our banking community, but that has not been addressed properly, either on this side of the Atlantic or in north America. However we choose to clean up the mess of toxic debt in banking, clear it up we must if we are to get proper banking relations to prevail. If LIBOR and the bank rate are to come into touch with each other and money is to become more affordable, that problem must be addressed. I have not heard anything from the Government to suggest that they are seriously addressing that issue. All that we hear is that the bankers have been called in—the Government are talking to them and trying to persuade them—but nothing happens in the real world to help small businesses desperate for money that they can afford, or to assist medium-sized businesses with their cash flow or, indeed, to help large businesses so that they can carry on the job of raising working capital at an affordable price.