Member

The Minister says that we are a different place, but I say that in this area we are almost identical. Exclusion by banks is not necessarily risk-based. Of course, there will be some customers who come in and when the risk is assessed it is not appropriate to lend them money. But our high street banks today do not have the capacity, and it is not in their business model, to do that kind of detailed individual digging and to understand, if it is a shop that wants to open a second premises, what that business is about, what it does, what the owner is like and what its record is like—and then work with them. They no longer have the capacity for any of that. This is the remedy to fill that substantial missing layer of community banking. I suggest that, if we want growth in this country, we will have to do that. I recommend that everybody who thinks that this is some sort of “not applicable here” idea should talk with the American financial institutions because I can tell you that—whether you are talking to JPMorgan Chase or to the smallest bank, or whether you are talking to the largest multinational or to the smallest business—you will get confirmation from them of the effectiveness and success of this sector. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.