Housing associations have fingered the fact that they cannot use their assets as liquidity due to Bank of England rules unlike their continental equivalents. This has emerged to be one of the main bottlenecks to getting investment going in the U.K. It is a Bank of England issue.

Small- and medium-sized businesses need access to a diverse range of finance options, including non-bank lending. These new forms of finance are still small in scale today but they should, over time, bring additional choice and greater competition to the lending market.

These 'masters of the universe' must be tamed in the interests of the ordinary families whose jobs and livelihoods are being put at risk. The Tories won't say anything about the current crisis as they are completely in the pockets of the hedge funds.

I don't feel comfortable with luxury, and I try to stay fairly normal.

So I went into government with a clear mind about what the problems were, and what needed to be done.

I've always been comfortable working with women and I've had two happy marriages. Draw what conclusions you like from that.

We need a new British business bank with a clean balance sheet and an ability to expand lending rapidly to the manufacturers, exporters and high-growth companies that power our economy. Today I can announce we will have one.