The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade and HM Treasury (Lord Stockwood) (Lab)

My Lords, this is a simple Bill, which I am honoured to bring to the House today. The Bill has two main provisions. It raises the statutory limits in the Industrial Development Act 1982 and the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991. These provisions ensure that the Government can continue to support British industry and British exporters with financial assistance. This matters because we know that exporting firms grow faster. They are more productive. They offer better jobs and higher wages than businesses that sell only domestically. Yet we know that access to finance can be a major headache for these same businesses. It is particularly tough for those that want to export millions of pounds’ worth of goods. Getting the necessary financial guarantees can be the biggest hurdle to exporting abroad, but noble Lords will know that these exports hold the key to a company’s growth. Just a single deal could be what makes or breaks a company. Export finance is having a tremendous impact on our economy. Some £14.5 billion of UK Export Finance support last year is supporting up to 70,000 jobs, including across key industrial sectors such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing, life sciences and the automotive sector. Through existing provisions in the Industrial Development Act, the British Business Bank’s northern powerhouse investment fund II has directly invested £115 million-worth of capital into over 300 small businesses. Similarly, in the Midlands, the Midlands engine investment fund II has launched a £400 million fund to drive sustainable economic growth by supporting innovation and creating local opportunity for new and growing businesses. We want to take this further, so that we can drive more growth across even more regions. With the Bill, we will ensure that transformational levels of government support will be there for industry tomorrow. The Bill contains some technical provisions, such as changing the currency from special drawing rights to pounds sterling, and it allows the delegation of future increases to UK Export Finance to secondary legislation. I am sure that noble Lords will champion the assistance provided through the Industrial Development Act and UK Export Finance that has helped businesses to grow through trade, creating jobs and fostering economic growth. It ensures that we can go faster and further, supporting more businesses to be pioneers in the sectors that are front and centre of the UK’s economy. In tandem with the new trade strategy, more businesses than ever before will be empowered to export with the financial firepower of the Government behind them. The Bill can mean only better prospects for those businesses, our economy and the UK, and will boost economic growth in the coming years. I am thankful to colleagues in the other place for their scrutiny of the Bill so far and look forward to the wisdom and expertise that noble Lords will bring to this debate today. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.