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Economic Recovery

I shall keep my comments brief, as I should like to hear the Minister respond to the perfectly straightforward points that have been made in the debate. As it is due to finish at 1.46 pm, I should like to give him five or 10 minutes in which to do that. We covered a lot of these matters in our debate on Monday, in which the Secretary of State for Work and Pension conceded, in response to my intervention, that she had not listened to the debate in full. There was, however, a tacit agreement that she would respond directly to the points made by Opposition Members. I hope that the Minister will give me an assurance today that the genuine points made on a constituency basis by my Conservative colleagues will be addressed directly, by mail—as soon as we can get letters through the post, that is—or via the letter board in the next couple of days. That will help us to deal with the problems that we have today, as well as those that we had on Monday, and those that we will have in future. I want to put a couple of points to the Minister. First, will the Government commit to applying the small business rate relief automatically to firms across the country? This relief is a significant help to companies struggling through the recession and can save small businesses more than £1,000 a year. That might not sound like a lot, but small businesses and enterprises have been the backbone of the economic success of this country for many years, and unless we build from the grass roots up, we will not have the success or the recovery that this debate purports to be about. Many businesses are not claiming the relief, either because they are not aware that they might be eligible, or because the procedure for claiming it is too burdensome. That just adds another layer of red tape to a small business or enterprise that is trying to do its bit for the recovery. Does the Minister agree that applying rate relief automatically would overcome this problem? Small businesses and enterprises have been an integral part of our success in the past, and we must recognise that for the future. Recent figures show a discrepancy between the value of loans offered to businesses by banks and the value of loans actually drawn down by them. Does the Minister agree that the two should not be confused? Surely the recovery of the economy can be secured only if Government schemes—many of which were described in our debate earlier this week—are working effectively. If they are not, there is no point in putting out a press release suggesting that they are going to happen. That merely pays lip service to a problem without actually dealing with it.