Cable: Lack of lending threatens to ‘throttle’ recovery

BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable warned Britain’s economic recovery could be “throttled” by banks’ reluctance to lend to small firms.

Addressing his party’s spring conference yesterday, he said: “If Britain is to emerge from this dreadful crisis, business needs access to finance, just as plants need water – and the banks aren’t supplying it.

“We can get the partly state owned-banks to lend more. This has been done to a degree, but we must do more. We can also try to mobilise some new sources of funding – supply chain finance from big companies; business angels and venture capital; pension funds and insurance companies.”