The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills does not provide any specific support for the haulage sector. However, we have taken steps to help improve cash flow, to increase the availability of the credit businesses need, and to encourage investment so that businesses come through the recession ready to grow.
In particular, we obtained bank lending commitments from RBS and Lloyds to lend £27 billion additional lending to businesses this year. This includes lending guaranteed under the Working Capital Scheme.
In addition, we introduced a trade credit insurance top-up scheme which provides protections for firms suffering a reduction in cover.
We have also taken steps to assist small businesses to overcome short-term cash-flow problems—for example the enterprise finance guarantee and also measures to ensure prompt payment by both public and private sectors.
In October 2008, Business Link introduced a health check service from which 2,394 businesses in the transport, storage and communications sector have benefited.