Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his Department’s latest estimate is of the loss rate of the (a) Bounce Back Loan Scheme and (b) Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.

The 2019-20 BEIS Annual Report and Accounts published on 30 September 2020 provided initial indicative loss ranges for both the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).

For BBLS, losses were estimated as of 11 September 2020 to be in a range of 35-60%. For CBILS, losses were estimated to be in a range of 10-25%. These estimates include both credit and fraud losses.

The initial indicative loss ranges are based on historic losses observed in prior programmes which most closely resemble the current Covid-19 interventions. However, no two programmes or two economic downturns are completely alike.

Work is currently underway to refine these estimates as data available to us improves. The Department will report updated estimates as part of its Annual Report and Accounts for 2020-21, to be published later this year.