Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill

Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town (Lab)]

My Lords, in my experience, smaller businesses rarely wake up in the morning worrying about statutory ceilings in the Industrial Development Act. What they worry about is whether they can secure the finance and insurance needed to win the next contract.

In my day job, I spend a lot of time around smaller and growing firms, particularly in the creative, technology and service sectors. These are precisely the sorts of businesses that increasingly make up the modern export economy. What they usually lack is not ambition—there is no shortage of that. What they lack is the financial tools that allow them to take on international contracts with confidence, manage risk and secure working capital.

That is why I broadly welcome the intent behind this Bill. Much of it is, in truth, a pragmatic adjustment. It updates the statutory limits under the Industrial Development Act and expands the capacity of UK Export Finance so that it can continue supporting British exporters at scale. In that sense, it is partially a piece of inflation catch-up. The limit for financial assistance under the Industrial Development Act has not been increased since 2009. Quite a lot has happened in the economy since then, and the scale of support required to compete internationally has inevitably grown. Updating these ceilings therefore seems sensible. However, raising the ceiling is the easy part. The more interesting question for Parliament is what happens beneath it.

UK Export Finance is already operating at considerable scale. In recent years, it has supported hundreds of businesses, thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of economic activity. Those are significant numbers, but the real test is whether the system helps the right kinds of businesses to grow and export. As we expand the capacity of these schemes, it would be helpful to understand how accessible they are to smaller firms, especially those outside the traditional large project and infrastructure sectors that export finance has historically focused on. Very often, these firms are not looking for a vast intervention from government. What they need is something more practical: the ability to ensure risk, unlock working capital and give a bank the confidence to support an export contract.

The Bill also makes future increases in UK Export Finance’s statutory limit easier. It allows the Government to raise the cap in increments of up to £15 billion through secondary legislation and removes the limit on how many times the mechanism can be used. I declare an interest as a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in this House. That flexibility may well be sensible, but if Parliament is effectively creating the ability to expand the programme repeatedly over time, it seems reasonable that we should also have a clearer picture of how the portfolio is evolving. For example, it would be useful for Parliament to see a regular statement covering the composition of the portfolio, the share of support reaching smaller firms, the regional spread of activity and the level of financial risk and exposure being taken on—a dashboard, if you like.

The explanatory material also emphasises that UK Export Finance operates on a sustainable basis, with the aim of delivering no net cost to the taxpayer over time. That is an important discipline and, as the scale of the commitments grows, understanding how that principle is being applied in practice becomes increasingly important. Ultimately, the success of this legislation will be measured not by the size of the ceiling we approve today but by whether more British firms are actually winning business around the world tomorrow, so while I support the direction of the Bill, I would be grateful if the Minister could address two points.

First, how do the Government intend to ensure that the expanded capacity of UK Export Finance translates into wider access for smaller and newer exporters across the country? Secondly, given that the new mechanism allows repeated increases in the statutory limit, will the Government consider providing Parliament with regular reporting on the size, composition and risk profile of the portfolio so that this House can see clearly how that expanded headroom is being used? If the Government can provide reassurance on these points, many of us will feel comfortable supporting this sensible and pragmatic measure. I look forward to the Minister’s response.