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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the most prevalent reasons for businesses being rejected for a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan.

Accredited lenders are responsible for providing loans under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS). Decision-making on whether a business is eligible to access the CBILS are fully delegated to the accredited lenders, and individual lending decisions remain at the discretion of these lenders.

Since launch, the Government has received a lot of feedback on how the scheme has been working. The Business Secretary continues to hold a regular dialogue with each of the biggest CBILS lenders to address feedback on how the scheme has been working and closely monitor its implementation to ensure that companies feel the full benefits of this support.

To date, the Government has responded rapidly by:

• Extending the scheme so that all viable small businesses affected by Covid-19, and not just those unable to secure regular commercial financing;
• Removing previous restrictions on the following groups to enable them to access the CBILS, subject to other eligibility criteria being met: Employer, professional, religious or political membership organisations and trade unions are now eligible for the CBILS;
• Removing ability for lenders to ask for personal guarantees for loans under £250,000, and reducing the personal guarantee for loans over £250,000 to 20% of the outstanding balance after recoveries;
• Removing the forward-looking viability test; and
• Removing the per lender portfolio cap.

The Government will continue to monitor the scheme as a whole.