John Cridland, CBI director general
The director-general said that levels of finance must rise in the economy to support growth aspirations, when speaking to business leaders at the CBI South East annual dinner yesterday at Epsom Downs racecourse.
“We need an action-this-day approach, and the lesson so far is that we must not allow good intentions to be lost to poor implementation. I want to see urgency to stop the recovery being choked off by a lack of finance,” said the Mr Cridland.
The director-general set out an eight-point plan to get more credit flowing to businesses:
- Easing gold-plated liquidity rules to help banks lend more
- Changing new solvency rules to enable insurance companies to invest
- Using the strength of government balance sheets to make the ‘NewBuy’ scheme more appealing to first-time buyers
- A new round of quantitative easing, potentially going beyond conventional government assets
- Urgently boosting non-bank finance to mid-sized businesses
- Delivering a one-stop-shop for SME lending schemes
- Using government backed trade finance to boost exports
- Corporate venturing incentive for large firms to provide financial support for supply chains
Mr Cridland said that the government must pull out all the stops to support UK exports. “Fresh thinking by Government on how it can use its balance sheet strength to support exporters could be a real game-changer,” he said.
