George Eustice
Main Page: George Eustice (Conservative - Camborne and Redruth)Department Debates - View all George Eustice's debates with the HM Treasury
Business Banking Resolution Service
George Eustice Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Andrew Griffith
The right hon. Member makes a fair point. The cracks that exist in the compensation regime are a challenging feature. That is one reason why I am attracted to using as much of the existing architecture as possible precisely to avoid that point about cracks.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I apologise that I missed the opening speech because I had another meeting. If a lender were to try to enforce security in respect of a residential mortgage on a home, they would first need to go to a court to get a possession order. When it comes to business lending, a bank can enforce their security without any recourse to the courts at all. Does the Minister think that that is something we should look at?
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. It would not be right to say that we should not look at it, but he raises this in the closing minutes of the debate and he knows that these areas can be fraught. One of the most challenging things about the regulation of financial services in general is the unintended consequences. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn talked about that, and we do not want to see any diminution in access to capital that could prevent our small businesses from growing. I would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend to understand the issue he raises in more detail, but I do not want to go any further from the Dispatch Box on that.
We have heard the importance of this matter to constituents of hon. and right hon. Members. We are united in this House on the importance of the provision of that lifeblood of business growth capital for our small businesses, which lack some of the sophistication and have been predated on by the banking sector in the past. That is not acceptable, and it remains the position of the Government to do everything we can to deliver redress where we can and to ensure the financial regulatory regime protects those who need our protection.