Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Bounce-back Loans: Sector-specific Access

Tuesday 7 July 2020 · 1 question

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 0 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Luke Evans questioned the impact of bounce-back loans on SMEs facing COVID-related difficulties.
  • The Minister acknowledged the importance of SMEs, noting there are 5.6 million such businesses in the UK.
  • The Government recognises the need for support as the economy recovers from the pandemic.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Luke Evans Con Cardiff North
Business & Trade
Context

The question addresses the potential merits of providing sector-specific access to extended bounce-back loans as part of the Government's covid-19 recovery strategy.

Question

Undoubtedly, bounce-back loans have been a success of this pandemic. However, I am concerned that normally viable small and medium-sized enterprises will face acute problems due to COVID and may need to make redundancies. The payments associated with redundancies may cause these businesses to become insolvent, thus losing all jobs and putting more pressure on the state. With that in mind, will he consider a fund or time-limited mechanism to ensure that SMEs can provide redundancy payments due to COVID, thus allowing them to remain solvent, protecting them from further job losses and providing some short-term stability for them to bounce back in the future?

Answer from John Glen (Financial Secretary to HM Treasury)

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course we recognise the importance of SMEs—there are 5.6 million businesses across the country with fewer than 10 employees, and we need their dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit as the economy starts to recover. The Government have said from the start that they will do whatever it takes to support business. The Chancellor has introduced a significant package of measures, which will be under review, and there will be further announcements in due course.

Answered
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