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Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2008

My Lords, I welcome the Secretary of State to his new role and thank him for his excellent speech. I shall be brief—I wish to raise only one issue—but I hope I will not put my foot in it as I characteristically do sometimes. As the Secretary of State may recollect, shortly after his departure from his second role in government he entered a lift in which I was going upwards, as it were. I said to him, ““Are you going up?”” He said, ““I wish I was””, and his characteristic humour came through. I thought that was very good and I shall try not to put my foot in it again. The Secretary of State knows of my long-term interest in small businesses and I am in touch with his department on a number of issues. I hope that under the present circumstances of the merger and the influence that the Government have through the banking sector we will see small businesses being treated fairly and helpfully. The small business sector provides an awful lot of work and that is why it is extremely important. Small business could suffer and big business is suffering. I welcome the Secretary of State in his role as a champion for business—which I know he will be—and I hope he will also be the champion for small business. On that note, I hope I will hear back from his department shortly on a number of points that I have raised.