George Osborne announces £1bn boost for small businesses ahead of the Autumn Statement
George Osborne has announced a lending package worth nearly £1bn for the UK's small and medium-sized businesses ahead of tomorrow's Autumn Statement.
The Treasury will give £400m to expand Enterprise Capital Funds, which invests in fast-growing small and medium size enterprises.
It will also guarantee up to £500m of new bank lending to these kind of businesses through the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme.
Additionally, the Funding for Lending (FLS) scheme, which boosts bank lending to small firms, will now run until January 2016.
George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
The government’s long-term economic plan is working with the Funding for Lending Scheme playing a vital role in supporting the recovery.
Now that credit conditions for households and large businesses have improved, it is right that we focus the scheme’s firepower on small businesses, which are the lifeblood of our economy.
That’s also why we’ve reformed the banks, introduced the British Business Bank and are now focusing the Funding for Lending Scheme on supporting them