By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter
David Cameron will deliver these words later today:
"I’ve lost count of the number of times people working in our small businesses have told me they just can’t get a loan for that new investment, that new clean room or that extension to their business. We also need to be supporting the person who wants to start that small internet trading firm from their home…
Often it’s a small investment – maybe just £30,000 – that can get those businesses going, create the jobs, kickstart the innovation and exports that we need. But these are the very loans that you simply can’t get without personal guarantees, like putting up your house – and even then the banks might say no. That’s got to change – and we’re going to use the Regional Growth Fund to help change it.
So Lord Heseltine has brokered a ground-breaking deal with RBS and HSBC where the government will provide £95 million of new Regional Growth Fund money for small and medium sized businesses and these two banks will administer the scheme and provide new lending.
By using high street banks like this we will give support to those SMEs that can’t access commercial funding and we will help areas of our country that other forms of business lending can’t reach."
He will conclude:
"It’s a huge step forwards."