Access to Sustainable Finance: A Whole New World for Business

One of the key areas brought to MPs is access to finance and funding for sustainable growth. Productivity and employment are driven by small businesses, and therefore appropriate support for their development must be in place. We welcome our new Vice-chair Martin Whitfield MP to the APPG, who will be leading on this body of work going forward.

This meeting brings together senior and influential figures and organisations in alternative finance, commercial banking, policy and business in order to understand the key challenges in financing businesses for sustainable growth. The final working group will identify achievable objectives with the aim of establishing what the future stable capital formation structure for UK SMEs could be.

The APPG on Fair Business Banking and Finance is one of the most high profile and effective cross-party organisations in Parliament, with over 120 MPs and Peers supporting the group. The APPG focuses on key, transformative and deliverable objectives.

It was formed in 2012 and is chaired by Kevin Hollinrake MP (Conservative) and Norman Lamb MP (Liberal Democrats), with vice-chairs Lord Cromwell (Crossbench), Martin Whitfield MP (Labour), Lisa Cameron MP (SNP), Sammy Wilson MP (DUP), and the Earl of Lindsay (Conservative).

The APPG is not a talking shop. We focus on achievable objectives that can be implemented on a voluntary level within industry through to legislative reform. The key objectives the Group has focused on since May 2015 have been fairer contracts, a new dispute resolution system, and reform of corporate insolvency frameworks.

We are clearly delivering these objectives.

We have brought industry to the table in establishing a Contracts Working Group that places the major banks in the same room as representatives of SMEs to create an equal contracts environment.

We have driven the financial regulator to address our calls to change the current system of dispute resolution. The FCA recently announced their consultation to extend the Financial Ombudsman Service, but there is still work to do in this area. We are working with key industry figures and policy makers to take this further by creating a Financial Services Tribunal. We have reached the stage that all parties are in agreement that we need to provide a solution for the issue of access to complex dispute resolution - it is now just a matter of delivering this in the right way.

We are coordinating with BEIS, the Insolvency Service, industry and key ministers to address issues in insolvency that have been highlighted during the financial crisis.

What are the challenges? How can we collaborate? How can we help?

Speakers at the event are as follows:

Martin Whitfield MP - Vice Chair, APPG on Fair Business Banking:

Martin was born and raised in Gosforth in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. He has lived in East Lothian since 2004 and worked as a teacher at Prestonpans Primary School from 2007 until his election on 8 June 2017. Before becoming a teacher, Martin had achieved a BA (Hons) Business Law degree from Huddersfield Polytechnic and worked as a Solicitor between 1989 and 2001. He retrained as a teacher at the University of Edinburgh, achieving a PGCPE pass with merit in teaching in 2002. Martin was a member of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) from 2015 until his election to Parliament. He was also an active member of the EIS teaching union. Outside of his professional life Martin has been actively involved in the local community since moving to the county, latterly serving as Chair of Prestonpans Community Council. Martin currently lives in Prestonpans with his wife Rachel and their two sons.

Heather Buchanan - Director of Policy, APPG on Fair Business Banking:

Heather Buchanan is the Director of Policy for the APPG on Fair Business Banking. She is the lead on commercial finance for the Transparency Task Force’s (TTF) Banking Team and is a member of the panel of TTF’s Financial Stability Team. Heather was on the Steering Committee of the BankingFutures project and has been invited onto the UK Finance SME Advisory Group. She has also contributed to the Lending Standards Board Standards of Lending Practice for Business Customers, and regularly advises MPs, peers, Government departments, regulators, trade bodies and civil society on the commercial relationships between businesses and their lenders.

Chris Pond - Chairman, Lending Standards Board

Chris is a key industry figure and has had a strong focus on fair consumer outcomes for many years. He has a wealth of experience gained through ministerial, chief executive, chair and director roles, covering a wide range of organisation in the financial services industry, including statutory and voluntary regulation and consumer bodies. His current non-executive roles include Chair of both the Money Charity and Equity Release Council Standards Board, Vice-Chair of the Financial Inclusion Commission, and Member of the Treasury Advisory Panel on Fintech.

Bevis Watts - Managing Director, Triodos Bank UK

Bevis Watts has been the Managing Director of Triodos Bank UK since April 2016 having previously been Head of Business Banking at Triodos for almost 5 years 2008-12. Since he joined as MD the bank has delivered strong growth, launched a new personal current account and crowdfunding platform. A fascination with the role of money and using it to stimulate behaviour change and growth in a sustainable economy has been a common thread throughout his career. He has 20 years’ experience of working in the wider sustainability sector; in the private, public and voluntary sectors. Bevis has always worked for values-led organisations, before Triodos he was Chief Executive of Avon Wildlife Trust and Head of Business Support at The Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) for 6 years. Bevis holds a first-class business degree, a PhD in Management Science, is a Chartered Environmentalist, a Member of the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management and a Fellow of the RSA.

Tomás Carruthers - Executive Director, Kirkman

Tomás Carruthers was educated at Newcastle Edinburgh and Cambridge, where he helped to start Electronic Share Information, the first website to publish share prices, in 1994. He subsequently founded Interactive Investor, which he built into one of the top three retail stockbrokers. For the past four years he was the CEO of the Social Stock Exchange which was launched by the Prime Minister in June 2013.