Brown overstates aid for business

GORDON BROWN exaggerated figures on how many businesses the government has helped during the recession.

The prime minister has repeatedly claimed that 300,000 firms have taken advantage of an initiative allowing them to stagger tax payments.

He cited the figure during prime minister’s questions in the Commons and also during a Labour party conference.

However, the business minister Pat McFadden has revealed that the true number of companies receiving help with cash flow under all government schemes is actually 168,000.

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Yesterday, the Conservatives accused Brown of misleading parliament, saying he had a long record of making “bogus” claims.

The criticism comes less than a week after the prime minister was forced to make a humiliating climbdown over claims defence spending has risen in real terms every year. He repeatedly made the inaccurate claim in statements to the Chilcot inquiry into the war in Iraq, the armed forces and the Commons, before being forced to admit that it was untrue.

The latest claim relates to the Treasury’s “time to pay” scheme, which allows businesses to reschedule tax payments.

During PMQs this month Brown said: “Three hundred thousand small businesses have been given direct cash flow help.” He also cited the figure in a speech to the Welsh Labour conference last month, where he said the government had faced a choice over whether to “let the recession run its course … or help 300,000 businesses … get the cash flow they needed”.

It has now emerged that this figure is the number of agreements that have been struck between firms and HM Revenue & Customs — not the number of businesses that have benefited. Many firms have made repeat agreements.

The correct figure of around 160,000 who have benefited from “time to pay” has been used by the chancellor, Alistair Darling, and Stephen Timms, the Treasury minister.

Philip Hammond, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “In the week when Gordon Brown was caught peddling false information about his funding of our troops on the front line, this is another example of his cynical manipulation of figures to cover up his mismanagement of the economy.”

The Tories claim Brown has a history of misleading the public over the government’s record on the recession.

Among the other examples they cite is his claim last summer that he had saved 500,000 jobs. Treasury documents later revealed that government measures were considered to have “supported” between 25,000 and 450,000 jobs.

“Therefore you could say ‘supported 450,000 jobs’ in the Budget speech,” they advised.

However, the Conservatives have also been accused of using misleading statistics.

Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, last month reprimanded the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, for misrepresenting crime statistics by claiming violent crime was rising.