My Lords, of course the Government are very committed to SMEs, and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, who I can say lots of nice things about, is a committed and good advocate for their cause. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, put his finger on the pulse—it is about definition. However, I do not want to get too deep into definition, thereby tying the hands of the bank too early on in its endeavours.
It is clear that the great challenge for any Government at the moment is to get the SMEs going. I know this first hand, given that I am not only the Prime Minister’s trade envoy but chairman of UKTI’s Business Ambassadors Group. This is our challenge—the beating heart of Britain and getting the SMEs going. Therefore, in the context of SMEs, we have to look at what the Government are doing as a wider initiative, rather than be tied down. That is why we have established the Funding for Lending scheme, Capital for Enterprise, the Business Growth Fund, the Regional Growth Fund, and the Enterprise Finance Guarantee fund, which has already helped 18,000 SMEs. To a certain extent, it is working, because we have had the highest amount of new businesses established since records began. Some 460,000 start-up businesses have registered at Companies House in the past 12 months.
However, I completely agree that this issue is an enormous challenge. In fact, my noble friend, is committed to this cause, as he is on late payments—an issue that is fundamental to SMEs. He tells me that his maiden speech was about late payments and commercial debt. He has a record of support for that case.
The noble Lord, Lord Cotter, has raised this subject a number of times in the Chamber. Therefore, do not get me wrong. The Government are completely committed to helping SMEs. That is why, for example, in procurement—one of the issues that I am involved with in government—we have insisted that 25% of government contracts should go to SMEs. An awful lot of work is going on. I do not want to be too prescriptive in this area of the Green Investment Bank, but it is totally focused on this issue and looks at each opportunity on its merits. Already, the bank’s smaller-scale funds for waste and non-domestic energy efficiency are already delivering investment for SMEs, such as the £8 million announced last week alongside a Teeside-based SME. Work is already going on to support SMEs.
With that in mind, I hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment.