My Lords, I first declare an interest as chairman of the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association. This issue falls under the Treasury
rather than the BIS, so it often gets ignored in terms of its crucial importance in raising equity capital for small businesses. Once you have the equity capital, you can gear up with borrowing. EIS, under Governments of both main parties, has raised more than £12 billion since it started; over the past three years, the amount raised has doubled in each of those years and is now well in excess of £2 billion for the current year. When the present Government came into power, one of the constructive things that they did was to go back to negotiate with the EU to widen the parameters of the EIS, which had been unhelpfully narrowed during the previous Labour Government. Equity finance for small business is almost more precious than debt finance, and there is a wider range of providers of debt finance now increasingly available. I want to register the point on a BIS Bill in a BIS debate today that the Treasury and the EIS is crucially important for small business.