Mr Speaker, I will maintain a focus on the long-term competitiveness of the UK and to increase our attractiveness as a base for global businesses.

To do so, I will introduce an exemption for foreign dividends in 2009 for large and medium businesses, and improve our rules for taxing Controlled Foreign Companies.

To build on this, I have also today published analysis of the long-term global trends impacting on the UK economy - and the Government’s response to them.

Mr Speaker, small businesses need help to reduce costs. I have two announcements to ensure they receive this help.

First, to help small firms meet their running costs, I can announce a temporary increase in the threshold for empty property relief.

For 2009/10, empty commercial properties with a rateable value below £15,000, will be exempt from business rates.

This exemption covers an estimated 70 per cent of all empty properties.

Second, at this time of real difficulty for many small businesses, they need ‘time to pay’ when meeting their tax bills.

I intend to meet this need.

From today HMRC will enable firms facing difficulties to spread their tax on a timetable they can afford.

This will cover not just VAT, as some have suggested, but all business taxes.

VAT, corporation tax, income tax and national insurance.

And not for six months but for as long as they need.

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Real help when businesses need it most.

I will also allow several hundred businesses in ports to spread out their payment of backdated business rate bills.

Mr Speaker, we must continue to address the difficulty that many small and medium firms face in getting loans.

As part of our recapitalisation scheme, we agreed that banks receiving Government funding would maintain the availability of lending to SMEs at 2007 levels.

And I welcome the commitment announced at the weekend by the Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the recapitalised banks, not to increase pricing on SME overdrafts prices for at least a year.

This will give security and reassurance to up to one million small businesses.

This should become the benchmark for all UK banks.

We are closely monitoring this commitment by banks to treat business customers fairly and decently.

I will take whatever action is necessary to make sure this happens.

We are also acting directly to improve access to finance.

First, we have agreed a £4 billion deal with the European Investment Bank to provide money to the banks to pass onto SMEs.

I can report today that seven UK banks have already asked the EIB for this money. £1bn will be available to their customers by the end of the year.

Next, I can announce the Government is also to offer credit through a temporary Small Business Finance Scheme.

This is worth another £1 billion to small businesses.

It should allow small businesses to borrow sums from a thousand pounds to a million pounds at more flexible terms than before, making lending more affordable and easily accessible.

This will help SMEs experiencing short-term cash flow problems get the funding they need.

We are also going to support companies which export, through the Export Credit Guarantee Department.

From January, it will offer a temporary facility to support the availability of short-term working capital for smaller exporters.

This will mean yet another £1bn of support, to help ease the financing constraint faced by firms trading in current circumstances.

Real support, quickly, for all types of small businesses.

Only possible because we have made a deliberate choice to support businesses through this crisis.

Mr Speaker, I have two more measures to announce to help business save tax.

First, I have decided to defer the increase in the small companies rate of corporation tax, which firms pay on their profits.

This will provide a boost to small companies - leaving their tax rate in 2009 unchanged.

Second, I want to support viable small companies who are finding it harder to make a profit at the moment.

We already have a system of tax repayments which are available to help those businesses, previously profitable, but now making losses.

Currently, companies are only able to offset losses against profits made in the last year.

It is important to offer more support to businesses at the moment.

So I am today extending this repayments scheme so losses of up to £50,000 can be offset against profits made for the last three years.

An estimated 75,000 businesses will benefit from this change, by receiving tax repayments.

And of these, 90 per cent will have their full current losses wiped out.

This is a comprehensive package of support which business has been asking us to provide.

A package to support business, worth £1bn of tax cuts, £2bn in loan guarantees, along with £4bn of European money.

A £7bn package of measures, real help.

Funding we can provide because we have decided to take action to support our economy through this recession.

I believe these steps will help businesses through the current difficulties and enable them to invest so they can make the most of opportunities as the global economy recovers.

Mr Speaker, I am determined that the present economic uncertainty does not push aside the importance of protecting the environment and our long-term needs for a greener and secure energy future.

We are already on track to exceed our emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto protocol - and further ahead than all G7 countries.

We have now increased our commitment for emission reductions to at least 80% by 2050 - the most ambitious in the G7.

Through the Climate Change Bill and the new five-year carbon budgets, the UK becomes the only country in the world where legislation sets a binding commitment to cut emissions.

The Government will set out detailed proposals for meeting the new carbon budgets, laid before Parliament, in summer 2009.

Our climate change strategy is based on a range of policies - encouraging more fuel-efficient business and transport; better energy use at home, and targets for renewable energy generation.

Central to this is the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme.

Last week we conducted the first auction of carbon allowances in Europe which gives firms the incentive to cut overall emissions.

As the Government has demanded, aviation will now be included in the emissions trading scheme from 2012.

This is a major step towards achieving our environmental objective of reducing the impact of aviation on climate change.

It has enabled me to look again at our proposals for reforming air passenger duty.

Mr Speaker, last year, there was cross-party support for a reform of air passenger duty to a tax per plane.

As much as I am in favour of a bipartisan approach, it seems in this case not to have reached the right conclusion.

This proposal could harm the aviation industry at a time when it is facing huge problems.

So instead I have decided to reform APD into a four-band system ensuring those that travel further and have a larger environmental impact meet that cost.

I believe this will be effective in reducing emissions from aviation.

Mr Speaker, improving insulation and energy efficiency will also help us reduce emissions as well as cutting energy bills for families.

In September we announced a £6.8 billion home energy saving programme.

This is expected to lead to a 70% increase in installation rates for cavity wall and loft insulation this winter.

The Warm Front scheme has already used its additional £50m to help modest income households get free energy efficiency measures.

Today I can announce that I am providing an additional £100 million in new money, and bringing forward another £50million, to help up to 60,000 more households insulate their homes.

Mr Speaker, the most pressing energy problem for many families is paying heating bills.

We have already tripled cold weather payments for this year, up to £25 a week, for those on modest incomes.

But I know there is widespread concern that the fall in the price of wholesale energy has not been reflected quickly enough in reduced household bills.

I can tell the House that Ofgem is to monitor price changes and publish quarterly reports detailing the link between wholesale and retail prices.

Alongside this, if sufficient progress is not made in the next few months in closing unfair gaps in pricing between payment methods - the Government will use statutory powers to end unjustifiable pricing differentials.

Mr Speaker, oil and gas from the North Sea remains an important part of our energy supply.

I am consulting closely with the industry over how together we can put in place the right incentives to increase production from marginal oil fields.