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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an estimate of how much and what proportion of the Government funding paid out through the Bounce Back Loan Scheme which was used by loan recipients to pay off (a) loans, (b) overdrafts, (c) credit cards and (d) other bank-issued debt with commercial lenders.

The first phase of the evaluation of the Covid loan schemes delivered by the British Business Bank was published on 14 June 2022 and found 13% of Bounce Back Loan borrowers used loan proceeds to make debt repayments. We do not have this data broken down by type of debt.

The refinancing of debt using a Bounce Back Loan, for example paying off credit card bills or an overdraft, may well have eased the financial burden on small businesses during the pandemic and would be a legitimate use of the scheme.