Economic Update

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

I very strongly support my noble friend’s views on this. We have seen some remarkable decision-making across government over the last few months, at a much faster rate than normal, and I encourage my noble friend to keep up his campaign to remind people of what is possible. In my own oversight of HMRC border-readiness, I used a simple mantra, which is that it does not take any longer to make a decision than not to make a decision, and it was remarkable how quickly decisions were made. I hope very much that we can continue with that philosophy.

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Chancellor’s timely update on our economy and the large amount of support he has given to businesses across all sectors throughout the country. As we are all too aware, we have a challenging time ahead balancing the books. Can the Minister say what steps are being taken to ensure that businesses inappropriately claiming financial assistance pay it back?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

We are aware of the possibility of wrongdoing by businesses and the claiming of grants that were not legitimately theirs but, as I said on an earlier question, the priority was to get the money out quickly to the overwhelming numbers of people who deserved it. Some 1.4 million bounce-back loans were approved, worth over £43 billion; on CBILS, there were 82,000 loans worth £19 billion. There will undoubtedly have been wrongdoing in that. I assure the noble Lord that we are active in our efforts to clamp down on any wrongdoing.