Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 28 November 2017 to Question 115425 on small businesses, what the (a) rate of default was on loans provided by UK export finance during the period to which that answer refers and (b) cost to the UK Exchequer of such defaults.

UK Export Finance (UKEF) has provided £14 billion of support for UK exports in the last five financial years to March 2017. UKEF operates at no net cost to the taxpayer and seeks to recover the full amount of any claims paid. UKEF also charges a premium to reflect the risk it assumes. In that time, claims paid by UKEF on this support totalled £8.6m, which represents 0.06% of the support issued.