The Chancellor, Alistair Darling has showed that he has theability to listen to small business demands after unveiling a £1bn SME financepackage.
The Federation of Small Business (FSB) has been pushing forthe £1bn fund arguing that more help is needed above and beyond the current £360msmall business loan scheme.
An FSB spokeswoman told MicroScope last week that it hadbeen proposing the fund to try and improve the liquidity in the market.
“Small businesses are not able to get loans as they are notalways available to them from the banks and the costs of finance are beingpushed up,” she said.
In the pre-budget report the chancellor unveiled a temporary£1bn scheme among other measures to try and get banks doing more for lenders.
The centrepiece of the chancellor’s session in the Commons wasVAT with it being cut from 17.5% to 15% until the end of next year. He saidthat it expected retailers to pass on the cut to customers.
Darling also cut forecasts of growth in the UK economy to between -0.75% and -1.25% next year.
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