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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, of 7 November 2017, Official Report, column 1323, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the safeguards that are in place to prevent inappropriate use of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme and its successors by banks.

Since 2009, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee has supported over 28,300 loans, totalling in excess of £3bn to viable small businesses with insufficient security or track record to otherwise obtain finance.

The scheme is administered by the British Business Bank, which closely supervises participating lenders through a robust programme of independent audit.

The British Business Bank undertakes regular reviews of the programme and published a Strategic and Operational Design Review in April 2016. A further independent evaluation of the economic impact of the scheme will be published this week.