Manufacturing Industries: Coronavirus

(asked on 24th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a Government-backed equity fund to help the recapitalisation of supply chain companies in the (a) aerospace and (b) wider manufacturing sector.


Answered by
Kemi Badenoch Portrait
Kemi Badenoch
President of the Board of Trade
This question was answered on 30th November 2020

The Government is committed to supporting businesses access the finance they need to achieve their full growth potential. For some companies, further debt may not be the right answer, and the private sector should be the first port of call for any business seeking new equity investment.

The aerospace sector and its aviation customers are being supported with over £9 billion support through the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility, grants for research and development, loan guarantees and support for aerospace exports.

The manufacturing sector has been well supported in its ability to access finance through the government loan schemes throughout the current pandemic period. Manufacturing firms have had over 7,000 CBILS loans worth over £2bn and over 74,000 BBLS loans worth over £2.3bn, bringing the total amount received through CBILS and BBLS to £4.4bn to over 80,000 manufacturing firms. These figures indicate that manufacturing firms have received a higher proportion of lending through the schemes relative to their share of the UK SME business population.

The Government will keep policy under review, and rigorously test any proposals for their value for money.

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