Alex Ballinger

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Madam Chair. I welcome the Bill and, more broadly, the Labour Government’s focus on our modern industrial strategy. In the Black Country, where manufacturing is our tradition, businesses are following this agenda very closely. I am pleased to see that the Bill will result in increased headroom for both industrial financial assistance and UK Export Finance. However, I have three questions for the Minister on practical points on SMEs’ access to finance in this Bill. First, on access to trade finance for SMEs, I speak to firms in Halesowen and Cradley Heath that can win export work on quality and reputation, but that lose contracts because they cannot bridge the working capital gap between buying inputs and getting paid. A forge may secure a promising overseas order, only to be asked by its bank for levels of security that are simply unrealistic for a business of that size. By the time finance is arranged, the customer may have gone elsewhere. Although I welcome the increased capacity in clause 2, I would like a reassurance from the Minister that UK Export Finance will translate the headroom into products that genuinely work for SMEs in a way that is faster, simpler and more proportionate to their requirements.