Taxpayers will commit to guaranteeing up to £21bn of bank lending for small and medium-sized businesses until 2011, under plans being unveiled on Wednesday by Lord Mandelson. Business on Tuesday night gave a guarded welcome to the government move, while warning it was not a panacea for the economic “maelstrom” engulfing employers. The FT has the breakdown of the three main measures that will be proposed in a package that ministers insisted differed markedly from rival Tory proposals.
