Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Conservative). It was answered on Wednesday, 9 June 2010.

Individual Savings Accounts

Question: My Lords, in welcoming my noble friend to his new position, could I ask him to look at this again? The noble Lord, Lord Myners, indicated in the last Parliament that this issue was the subject of a review and that we might get a response in due course. How long is ““in due course””? Does not my noble friend agree that small and medium-sized businesses are the key to expanding prosperity and jobs in our country, so making this small change—which as the noble Lord said is an anomaly—will open up the possibility of investors being able to invest, and ““all being in this together””, to create a recovery in our country? Surely we need a response.

Answer: First, I regret that I cannot say why the previous Government made no progress on their promised consultation. As I have said before, the new Government, who have not been in office for very long, are considering this question and we will set out our approach in due course. In the mean time, I stress that we welcome the views of interested parties. I should also stress that we are looking at a whole range of issues related to SME financing which I agree is an extraordinarily important matter. The range of issues relates as much to bank lending and keeping the flow of credit going as it does to raising equity.

Secondary information