Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the main cashflow challenges affecting businesses.

The Covid-19 pandemic left many businesses in the UK and elsewhere facing sharp revenue falls in the absence of support. Due to the unprecedented support package put in place by HM Government, UK businesses have made it through the pandemic, often with higher levels of cash reserves than they started. And they are rebounding strongly, with recent figures for August showing that hospitality GVA returned to pre-Covid levels.

However, as the UK and other economies recover from the pandemic, a number of pandemic-related and global factors have led to rising commodity prices, particularly for energy. These and other disruptions in global supply chains, are driving up expenses for UK businesses such as the cost of labour, raw materials and logistics.

We will continue to work closely with other departments to actively monitor these disruptions and their effects on business cashflow, which are being experienced by economies across the globe.