Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to his Department’s press release entitled ‘UK lenders step up with £11 billion push to back British businesses’ published on 26 January 2026, what estimate he has made of the number of jobs expected to be supported or created as a result of the lending package.

The package is a commitment from the UK’s top high-street banks to lend more to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) using UKEF’s guarantee, to boost UK exports and economic growth. It signals to SMEs that want to export that there is a dedicated pool of capital available for them from lenders whom they trust.

Each bank has agreed to make the funds available across the whole of the UK. While we have not made formal assessments of the impact of these commitments on exports, the UK economy or jobs, last year UK Export Finance provided £14.5 billion of support to UK exporters, in turn supporting up to 70,000 jobs and contributing £5.4 billion to the economy.