George Osborne is to deliver a near-£1bn boost to Britain’s small and medium-sized businesses in a bid to boost the engine of the UK economy.
As part of Wednesday’s Autumn Statement, the Chancellor is expected to announce a package of new policies aimed at fuelling SMEs and intended to build on a series of measures already delivered during the current parliament.
Mr Osborne is expected to unveil an additional £400m for the British Business Bank, as well as further funding for the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, to allow up to £500m of new lending in the 2015-16 fiscal year.

The extra funding for the state-backed bank will be funnelled through its venture capital arm.

The two streams of funding are designed to help the Business Bank – aimed at bringing the Government’s various SME offerings under one roof – meet its aim of unlocking £10bn of SME finance by 2018.

The announcements will follow on from Tuesday night’s decision by HM Treasury and the Bank of England to extend the Funding for Lending scheme (FLS) for one year, targeted at boosting SME lending.

The extension is designed to encourage the major high street banks to lend to small companies by providing cheaper funding. The FLS was introduced in July 2012, initially aimed at household credit. It was refocused towards business lending in November last year,

Stuart Griffiths CEO of the True Telecom comments “We welcome the decision of George Osborne to boost British funding for SME’s. True has always been fully supportive of SME’s our lowest line rental options in the UK help drive down costs for business communications.”