Lord Livermore (Lab)

I am grateful to my noble friend for his points. In the letter that the Chancellor sent to the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, she made it very clear that the importance of competition, growth and risk-taking is to be seen in the context of its regulatory duties. She said that: “The financial services regulators are key to driving forward” growth; “we must have proportionate, effective regulation that allows firms of all sizes to compete, innovate and grow, creates a stable, attractive environment which encourages businesses to establish and expand in the UK, and adequately protects consumers”. She recognises that there are trade-offs to be made, but she would like to see a greater emphasis on achieving that secondary growth objective. On supporting small businesses and their access to finance, my noble friend is absolutely right that, to date, the UK has been a very good place to start a business but a less good place to scale one, and access to capital is a vital part of improving that. He mentions the British Business Bank, which is incredibly important; it has been very successful in providing some of that finance, and we need to go further. Colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade will also be coming forward with proposals to help small businesses scale and grow.