My Lords, I add our support for the first of the measures. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, for introducing it into our discussions and the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, for his excellent comments.
Amendment 30, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, would give the Small Business Commissioner a role in commenting on access to finance and to make a simple and straightforward case. A number of measures try to increase access to finance, whether they be the provision of overdrafts for very small businesses, forms of growth capital, older forms of asset finance, newer forms of peer-to-peer lending or other forms of finance. Many people look at these schemes and programmes; indeed, committees in this House, the Government and other bodies have looked at the performance of a number of the initiatives that are available and whether they give the right benefits and whether too much is taken out of them.
The purpose of the Small Business Commissioner is to take the perspective of a small business to try to find ways in which such schemes work to best effect on behalf of small business. In many ways, this is our thinly veiled attempt to enable the Small Business Commissioner to be the advocate of small businesses and to take a particular perspective that encourages the voice of those who require access to finance to come to the fore. Where the Small Business Commissioner is able to draw on the lessons learnt from resolving disputes—where there are broader lessons, challenges and problems—those comments can be made. Invariably, the problem is not just about cash flow. If you have a problem with cash flow, access to finance will be the crucial test of whether you are able to survive.