Tories to Labour: Less talk, more action

Shadow business minister Mark Frisk has called on the government to "stop talking and start delivering" ahead of its small business lending forum today.

In the past five months there have been 11 new discussion groups, panels and forums created by the government to look into how to deal with the financial crisis.

In that same period there have also been 13 summits with another - a social enterprise summit - planned for the near future.

Appearing before the liaison committee yesterday, Gordon Brown was accused of "initiative-itis".

"The government has already held countless briefings, meetings, announcements, forums and summits," said Mr Frisk.

"But what businesses need is action on the promises they have already made to free up the credit markets.

"With 17 businesses going bust everyday, when is the government going to stop talking and start delivering?"

The forum was announced following a meeting between business secretary Lord Mandelson, the chancellor, and chief executives of leading banks.

Outside the meeting in October, Lord Mandelson said: "What we clearly need to do, given the concerns amongst small businesses and the tensions there, is to create a forum to bring them together.

"The government is going to do that in the next couple of weeks so that where there are issues about availability of lending and curbs on lending we can thrash these out and tease out the problems."

Small businesses have struggled to get loans from banks during the credit crunch and the forum is designed to bring banks and businesses together to find a solution to the problem.