---

The Economy

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question, and I shall give him some examples. It is clear that we need to be able to make sure that the lending is getting through, but we must also recognise that the scale of the withdrawal of credit by foreign institutions in this country means we must do a huge amount of work on a range of different fronts. That is why it is important to look beyond bank lending and lending to business to find other ways of supporting demand in the economy through this difficult time. I know he would agree with that. The hon. Member for Eastleigh asked for details of some of the specific schemes. For example, additional funding from the European Investment Bank of over £300 million was announced for small and medium-sized enterprises was announced in November’s pre-Budget report. That has now been approved, while the enterprise finance guarantee scheme is in the middle of processing 400 loans, worth over £40 million, to businesses that otherwise would not be able to access funding. The commitments made as a result of the asset protection scheme amount to £25 billion from Royal Bank of Scotland and £14 billion from Lloyds. That is in addition to the further lending that Northern Rock has committed to. One of the most important schemes that we have put in place is the one that allows businesses to defer taxation. So far, 90,000 businesses have taken the opportunity to defer £1.5 billion and have been able to get additional support as a result.