Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform – in the House of Commons am 10:30 am ar 7 Mai 2009.
As my hon. Friend is aware, the trade credit insurance market is dominated by three firms—Euler Hermes, Coface and Atradius. The ECGD used to provide short-term credit insurance, but it has not done so for a number of years since it privatised that operation out to Atradius. He is right to point out that many companies rely on trade credit insurance. Our figures suggest that about 14,000 out of 250,000 companies have trade credit insurance, so it is a significant market, and we need to keep under review whether it is functioning efficiently. We have to consider whether there is more that we can be doing sensibly, as a Government, to help our businesses through these difficult times. What we have here is a Government who are actively looking at providing support—real help to business now rather than a party that wants to do nothing.