Business: Debts
(asked on 28th October 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the regional spread of business debt in each of the last five years.
Answered by
Gareth Thomas
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Business debt in the UK is spread across each of the regions, with the biggest proportions found in London, the South East and South West. Please find a detailed breakdown of the changes in the regional spread of business debt in each of the last five years, using figures from UK Finance:
Table: The share of the value of SME loan facilities (with each year-on-year difference)
Region | Q2 2019 | Q2 2020 | Q2 2021 | Q2 2022 | Q2 2023 | Q2 2024 |
London | 19.7% | 21.0% (+1.3%) | 21.6% (+0.6%) | 20.9% (-0.7%) | 21.6% (+0.6%) | 21.4% (-0.2%) |
South East | 13.0% | 13.5% (+0.6%) | 13.3% (-0.2%) | 13.2% (-0.1%) | 13.8% (+0.6%) | 12.9% (+1.0%) |
South West | 12.1% | 10.9% (-1.2%) | 10.7% (-0.2%) | 10.7% (+0.1%) | 10.9% (+0.2%) | 11.9% (+1.0%) |
East Midlands | 5.6% | 5.7% (+0.1%) | 5.7% (-0.1%) | 6.1% (+0.4%) | 5.8% (-0.3%) | 6.1% (+0.3%) |
West Midlands | 9.1% | 9.0% (+0.0%) | 8.9% (-0.1%) | 8.6% (-0.3%) | 8.8% (+0.2%) | 8.5% (-0.2%) |
East of England | 6.7% | 6.6% (-0.1%) | 6.7% (+0.0%) | 6.5% (-0.1%) | 6.7% (+0.2%) | 6.8% (+0.1%) |
Yorkshire & The Humber | 7.1% | 7.1% (+0.1%) | 7.3% (+0.2%) | 7.1% (-0.2%) | 7.4% (+0.3%) | 7.2% (-0.2%) |
North East | 3.2% | 3.1% (-0.1%) | 3.1% (+0.0%) | 3.1% (+0.0%) | 3.0% (-0.1%) | 2.9% (-0.1%) |
North West | 10.1% | 10.5% (+0.4%) | 10.4% (-0.1%) | 11.2% (+0.8%) | 9.7% (-1.5%) | 9.5% (-0.2%) |
Wales | 4.7% | 4.3% (-0.5%) | 4.2% (-0.1%) | 4.5% (+0.3%) | 4.3% (-0.2%) | 4.3% (+0.0%) |
Scotland | 8.7% | 8.2% (-0.6%) | 8.2% (+0.1%) | 8.1% (-0.2%) | 8.0% (-0.1%) | 8.5% (+0.5%) |
Source: UK Finance (Aggregated SME Database, average of small and medium businesses value of loan facilities). Quarterly figures may not be directly comparable between years due to a re-segmentation of businesses and improvements in reporting from 2023 Q2 onwards. This includes some regional re-classification.