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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of trends in the regional spread of business debt in (a) each of the last five years and (b) during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Covid-19 outbreak did not substantially alter the trends in the regional spread of business debt.

The following figures are taken from UK Finance data and are taken as a share of the value of loan facilities of small and medium enterprises in England.

Between Q1 2017 and Q1 2020:

• London (18% to 23%), Yorkshire and the Humber (7% to 8%), and the East of England (7% to 8%) all increased their share of SME lending.
• Regional shares of SME lending fell in the South East (18% to 15%), South West (15% to 13%), North West (15% to 12%) and East Midlands (7% to 6%).
• Regional shares stayed the same in the North East (3%) and West Midlands (10%).

During the covid-19 outbreak, between Q1 2020 and Q4 2020:

• London (23% to 25%) and the South East (14% to 16%) increased their shares of SME lending.
• The East of England reduced its share of SME lending from 8% to 7%.
• The regional shares of SME lending in South West, East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, North East and North West were unchanged.

These shares compare to the following table for Regional GDP:

Table: Regional GDP (2018 data) and SME lending (Q4 2020) shares in England.