Stella Creasy has suffered a blow to her campaign to tackle legal loan sharks after her amendment to the Finance Bill was defeated.

The Labour amendment, which would have given the Financial Conduct Authority given the power to cap the cost of credit, was defeated by 266 votes to 225.

Earlier today Ms Creasy, who has been campaigning on this issue for many months, warned in an exclusive PoliticsHome opinion piece that the Government could not “plead ignorance” about the impact of short-term loan companies.

Stella Creasy has suffered a blow to her campaign to tackle legal loan sharks after her amendment to the Finance Bill was defeated.

The Labour amendment, which would have given the Financial Conduct Authority given the power to cap the cost of credit, was defeated by 266 votes to 225.

Earlier today Ms Creasy, who has been campaigning on this issue for many months, warned in an exclusive PoliticsHome opinion piece that the Government could not “plead ignorance” about the impact of short-term loan companies.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has called for Whitehall to "go further in slashing red tape" ahead of the publication today of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill.

The Department for Work and Pensions has cancelled a contract with welfare-to-work provider A4e, after an investigation found "significant weaknesses" in the company's internal processes.

The contract relates to the Mandatory Work Activity programme in the south east of England, and the company's Work Programme deals are not affected.

A probe led by the DWP and accountants Ernst and Young found "no evidence of fraud" in any A4e contracts, but in the case of the Mandatory Work Activity contracts the team found that "documentation supporting payments was seriously inadequate".

Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, welcomed the termination, but urged the DWP to investigate allegations of fraud in previous government contracts with the company.

"If you know a builder down the road has done a rotten job for a neighbour of yours, even if it’s a new job working for you, you would still want to consider whether or not to give that builder a contract.”

Eight of the company's staff have so far been arrested over allegations that they had been falsely claiming to have placed unemployed people in work.

There was more bad news for the department this morning, with the Public Accounts Committee warning that the Work Programme could waste taxpayers' money.

MPs concluded a failure to properly pilot the scheme meant there was a danger private contractors could be overpaid for work. The committee's report comes as a third charity, St Mungo’s, pulled out of the programme.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne said:

"The Government must now stop hiding performance information about the rest of its giant private sector contracts and publis so that Parliament can see whether public money is being well spent."

MPs today debated new legislation to ensure suppliers are treated fairly by big retailers.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill was published in the House of Lords on Friday, and was discussed as part of the debate on the Queen's Speech in the Commons earlier.

The Government's plans have received a mixed response from industry bodies.

The bill will create a Groceries Code Adjudicator to address competition issues by arbitrating disputes between retailers and suppliers, investigating anonymous complaints, and taking sanctions against retailers who break the rules.

The Business Secretary Vince Cable said "The case of a highly concentrated industry, buying and selling to large numbers of suppliers and customers, is a classic economic textbook case where intervention is necessary to prevent monopoly profits occurring."

Downing Street has dismissed claims that the Government is creating a "toxic" environment for British firms, insisting that ministers are doing what they "should" do to create growth.

Business leaders will meet David Cameron at Downing Street today and will reportedly say that the atmosphere towards business in the UK is becoming "quite poisonous".

The Prime Minister's business advisory group, which includes Sainsbury's chief Justin King, is expected to urge Mr Cameron to offer a more positive take on the role of big business in the UK economy.

But the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman today said: "We are doing what the Government should do. That's redoubling our efforts to make sure that we create the right environment to allow businesses to grow."

Asked whether the Government and business were at one another's throats currently, the spokesman said: "I don't think I accept that, as I was saying: what we've done over the past two years is taken a number of steps to improve the business environment, boosting infrastructure, we are cutting red tape, we're cutting corporation tax, we are reforming planning. These are all things that business have been asking for an we've been responding to that."

But he did not endorse comments by Philip Hammond that business leaders were "whinging".The row follows Foreign Secretary William Hague saying yesterday that businesses should stop “complaining” about the state of the economy, while Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said firms had to “work harder” to deliver growth.

Government plans to give parents access to flexible parental leave will "not be welcomed by most business owners," according to the Forum of Private Business.

The not-for-profit business support group said the plans, announced in last week's Queen's Speech, will hit small firms hardest.

Measures in the Children and Families Bill, which is expected to be laid before Parliament next year, will give parents "access to flexible parental leave, so that where they want to, mothers and fathers can share caring responsibilities in a way which best fits their needs".

William Hague has hit out at critics of the Government, telling business leaders to stop complaining and “get on with the task of delivering more of those jobs”.

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, the Foreign Secretary said there is "only one growth strategy: work hard".

Labour's Michael Dugher said Mr Hague's remarks showed ministers were "burying their head in the sand" and trying to blame others for the failure of the Coalition's economic policies.

Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna called the Foreign Secretary's comments "typical of an out of touch Government that refuses to listen and refuses to take responsibility for its own economic policy failure".