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Rural Communities (Recession)

We have given a commitment that there will be no further rail closures until 2013 and we have been subsidising rural bus routes to the tune of some £400 million to try to ensure that the rural community can keep going via public transport as well as via other means. As I said, the Government are delivering support for people and businesses in all communities. We are cutting taxes, with a cut in VAT worth more than £20 a month on average for households for the whole of 2009. A range of tax cuts and increases for tax credits and benefits introduced on 6 April are already putting money in people's pockets. For businesses, we are keeping lending flowing by securing billions of pounds of additional finance with legally binding agreements with banks to increase lending for business on commercial terms—£11 billion from Lloyds TSB and £16 billion from RBS. We are freeing up capital by signing £1 billion-worth of guarantees through the working capital scheme and backing bank lending to viable businesses that cannot get commercial loans with the enterprise finance guarantee. More than £400 million-worth of eligible applications from over 3,600 small businesses have been assessed and are being processed or have been granted. More than 2,500 businesses have been offered loans totalling more than £231 million. We are supporting cash flow by agreeing deferred payment of more than £2.5 billion in tax by 145,000-plus businesses since November, as well as enabling companies to spread the increases in business rates over the next three years. A business paying a rates bill on a typical property that will see a £600 rise in its rates liability in 2009-10 will be able to defer £360 of that increase to future years. We are also providing real help to keep people in work and delivering support, as I have just described, for thousands of businesses. We are investing in the future so that the economy is well placed to benefit from the recovery. For example, we are bringing forward £3 billion-worth of capital projects and providing a £600 million fund to kick-start house building.