Tuesday Visit to Haines Watts accountants in Ashby

Today I visited an accountancy firm in Ashby to discuss the state of the economy and the outlook for business and enterprise locally and nationally. I met with Mr Ryan Wilkinson of Progress Haines Watts.
Given the figures released this week showing that business investment has fallen drastically in the few months of this year, I was keen to question Ryan on this. Ryan was emphatic that the problem holding back business and enterprise remained access to funding from the banks. He regaled me with numerous examples of small and medium sized businesses employing local people which have been unable to get bank support to grow their businesses. Every time a business expands and takes on a new contract there is usually a delay between the delivery of the goods and or service and the payment from the customer, the funding of this gap is called the working capital requirement of the business. Without this working capital businesses are unable to fund extra business. It is clear that the Labour Governments bank loan guarantee scheme is failing, Ryan remarked that he only knew of one business who had been able to access the scheme.

Only by getting business and enterprise moving again will our country be able to recover from recession, with the Labour Government sending mixed messages to the banks several of which are now effectively in Government control, it is obvious that business is not getting the support it needs. Banks are being asked by Gordon Brown to lend more to business, pay back the debt to the Government and at the same time improve their cash reserves, it is impossible to do all three of these at once and it is business which is suffering.