Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government has any plans to write off loans made under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme.

There is no government policy to wholesale write off loans. Under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) all loans are liable to recovery action by lenders or – in the case of serious fraud or financial crime - law enforcement.

Unfortunately, some loans will ultimately not be recoverable and may result in lenders claiming on the government guarantee. All guarantee claims are scrutinised closely by the British Business Bank as administrators of the Scheme before they are settled. These claims include defaults due both to credit losses, where a business took the loan in good faith but could not make repayments and a smaller proportion that were marked as suspected fraud. Lenders continue to make recovery efforts even after they claim on the guarantee and return recovered funds to the government, so some of that money may be returned to HM Government in due course.