Credit guarantee scheme for SMEs may be worth pounds 20bn; IN ASSOCIATION WITH Rensburg Sheppards.

MINISTERS will announce a package of measures "within the next few days" to help small and medium sized businesses which are having difficulty getting access to credit, Downing Street said last night.

Reports have suggested ministers are considering a loan guarantee scheme worth as much as pounds 20bn, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman told reporters this morning that the Government was also looking at wider issues affecting businesses.

The spokesman said: "Our scheme will be targeted, it will be thought through, it will be funded and it will be focused on those businesses that we want to support most of all.

"That in particular is small and medium sized businesses which are viable but are having difficulty accessing working capital at this time."

The spokesman said the Government was not proposing "irresponsible blanket guarantees" for all business lending.

There are widespread expectations that the state will effectively offer to "insure" banks against firms defaulting in return for a fee.

If confirmed, the plan would be similar to one endorsed by the Tories - although they have called for a pounds 50bn commitment.

Mr Brown's spokesman said it would build on support for smaller businesses announced in Chancellor Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report (PBR) in November.

The spokesman said: "We did announce our intention to bring forward further proposals specifically to help small and medium-sized enterprises that are viable but have difficulty accessing working capital."