The Economy

Steve Baker Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. I am striving to make the process as seamless and as quick as possible. We made some improvements a couple of weeks ago—removing guarantees and changing some things on the back end—which have already made a difference. More than 20,000 CBILS loans have now been issued and there are 40,000 applications that the banks are working through. The acceptance rate remains high at over 80%, but there are further tweaks that we have been putting in place over the past week. Information on that will be outlined later. It is largely technical, administrative and regulatory, but I believe those changes will continue to accelerate the pace of CBILS loans and, like the hon. Member, I think we all share that aspiration.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the wisdom and skill with which he is adopting policies that I am confident are not naturally his territory. Well done to the Government. Will he reassure me that he is conscious that we need to take early, safe opportunities to open up the economy if we are to get back to a path to sustainable prosperity? Can he reassure me that he knows how to unwind this major set of interventions, so that we can get back to sound economic principles?

[Rishi Sunak]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes excellent and informed points on economic policy. I thank him for his support as well. He is absolutely right. I share with him, as does the Prime Minister, a sense of urgency about wanting to reopen our economy so that we can start driving growth, providing people with employment and paying for our public services. He is right to acknowledge that that must be done safely. Although we have made progress, we are not there yet, but I can reassure him that extensive work is under way to plan for phase 2 of the crisis so that we can get back to the economy that he and I both want to see.