Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Davies of Oldham (Labour). It was answered on Wednesday, 28 July 2010.

Banks: Business Lending

Question: My Lords, the Minister has referred to the Green Paper on two occasions. Is he aware that an official identified it as very green because it reflected the inability of the Business Secretary to convince the Chancellor to adopt a more constructive approach to this issue? Does this not reflect usual tensions within the coalition? Does the noble Lord also recognise that the Budget has been received in such a way as to reduce the level of demand in this country rather than increase it?

Answer: My Lords, it is not very productive to reduce everything to trying to find chinks of light between different parts of the coalition. It would be more helpful to have a substantive discussion about the Green Paper. It was published under the joint signatures of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and sets out a wide-ranging agenda of possible measures to increase lending to business. As I said, I encourage anybody with views on it to contribute to the debate over the summer.

Secondary information