Briefing from the Prime Minister’s spokesman on: economy, Heathrow and misc
Economy
Asked what non-bank institutions were, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the Prime Minister was referring to the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, for example, or export credits. These were examples of how the Government was providing support to small and other businesses. We had said that that was an area we would look at to see what more we could do to help businesses through this difficult period.
Asked which part of the funding announcement today was new, the PMS replied that all the funding was new. The funding had been set aside in reserve in the Pre-Budget Report (PBR) and this was using some of that money that was set aside. Put that there was still money in that account as it were, the PMS confirmed that there was.
Asked if there would be more of this non-bank institutional lending in the future, the PMS said that these were vehicles the Government had used in the past. We were looking at a range of options but the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Business Secretary were clear that we did need to look at what more we could do to help small and medium-sized enterprises in particular. As and when there were any specific announcements to make, the Treasury or BERR would make them.
Put that non-bank institutions in this context meant the Government, the PMS replied that he was giving people examples of how you might interpret non-bank institutions. Asked if the contingency fund in the PBR was £1billion and today the Government had committed to spending half of that, the PMS confirmed that that was correct. Asked if the fund was an anti-recession fund, the PMS advised people to wait and see. It was money that was set aside as part of the DEL Reserve in the PBR.
Asked if this was a separate reserve from normal, the PMS said that it was an addition to the reserve that was made at the time of the PBR. Put that the Prime Ministers announcements on combating the downturn seemed to be drowned out by large-scale job losses, the PMS said that we had had an announcement today of large-scale job expansion from Morrisons for example.
As the Prime Minister and other Ministers had been saying today, there were half a million vacancies in the economy, there were approximately 200,000 new jobs created each month. Unfortunately there were more people than that losing their jobs and that explained why unemployment was going up. However, there were still a significant number of jobs being created in the economy at the moment and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.
Asked if a non-banking institution could be the Post Office, the PMS said that examples he would point to of non-bank institutions or non-bank means of providing or guaranteeing lending would be through for example the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme or export credits.
Heathrow
Asked if the subject of Heathrow would be discussed at Cabinet tomorrow, the PMS said we would not normally brief on what would be discussed in Cabinet in advance. We had said that there would be an announcement on Heathrow in January, but it was only the 12th January at the moment, so there was still a few days left in which the announcement could take place.
Misc
Asked for more details on the visit of Ben Bernanke to Downing Street tomorrow, the PMS replied that Mr Bernanke and the Prime Minister had met on a number of occasions before and no doubt they would want to talk about the general situation in the global economy.
Asked if the Prime Minister would be meeting President Elect Obama before the G20 in April, the PMS said that that was a matter we would return to after the inauguration.
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