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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on UK Government support for businesses that have become heavily indebted during the covid-19 outbreak.

The UK Government is committed to supporting people, businesses and individuals across the devolved administrations. This includes a total of £19 billion in funding for the devolved administrations since the start of the pandemic, meaning at least £5.9 billion for the Welsh Government. Following discussions with the devolved administrations, additional funding totalling £729m has been provided to allow each of the devolved administrations to provide further support to businesses on a discretionary basis.

The devolved administrations have also benefitted from UK-wide support programmes, including through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self-Employed Income Support Scheme and business lending schemes.

As of 21 February 2021, the Government’s UK-wide lending schemes have approved over 1.5 million Government-guaranteed loans worth over £72 billion to support cashflow for businesses across the UK affected by COVID-19.

We recognise that some borrowers will benefit from repayment flexibility, and that is why we announced the Pay As You Grow measures, which give Bounce Back Loan borrowers more time and greater flexibility to repay their loans.

We have also enabled lenders to extend the repayment period for Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) facilities beyond 6 years (up to a maximum of 10 years) where this is needed in connection with the provision of forbearance. CBILS term extensions are offered at the discretion of lenders. This measure is designed to help businesses that would struggle to repay their CBILS facility on their existing terms, by reducing monthly repayments.