Trips to Westminster - small business lending, ID cards and more

written by Angela Knight on 24/02/2009

Another week, another speech to deliver – followed by a Q&A session on banking. This time it was over in Westminster on Monday evening and the questions were perhaps not quite as good as the American European Business Lunch that I attended last week, and certainly it was rather more bloody. But then that is part of the job I do, and it was soothed by a rather nice couple of glasses of white wine courtesy of one of the Lords. That was in fact my second visit to Westminster of the day, having spent an extraordinary 45 minutes in the early afternoon being -sold' the benefit of the National ID cards by the minister with responsibility for identity. And then it was back again to the Commons on Tuesday with the Lib Dems and, yes, it's banking and the lending to small businesses. Why, I hear you ask, do we not brief them in writing? The answer is we do - frequently and clearly, and in some length – but the one-to-one visits are still necessary.