Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the Chancellor beforehand about this. During the lockdown, covid loans were made available to companies. Companies in my constituency have indicated to me that the repayment scheme is not over a flexible period of time and they have to pay back large amounts of money in one go. To ensure that those companies can survive beyond the lockdown and into next year, may I ask the Chancellor whether it is possible to make some flexibility in the repayment of those loans for those companies?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. It is one that, I hope, we have already addressed. He is right about the importance of companies having the cash flow to bounce back strongly, which is why late last year we introduced something called “pay as you grow” to help the 1.3 million small and medium-sized companies that have taken bounce back loans. It means that automatically, at their choice, they will be able to turn those loans from five-year repayment loans to 10-year repayment loans, which almost halves the monthly repayments. Furthermore, it gives them the option to go for interest-only repayment periods of six months or for payment holidays, none of which will impact their credit rating as long as they do it in advance. That should be automatically communicated to businesses by their bank. I hope that is helpful to the small and medium-sized companies in his constituency.