Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme

(asked on 20th April 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will ask the European Commission to exempt the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme from EU state aid rules.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 28th April 2020

Although the UK has left the EU, under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, the EU State Aid rules continue to apply in the UK until the end of the Transition Period.

Although the European Commission declined to suspend the State aid rules because of the Coronavirus pandemic, the Commission introduced flexibilities into the rules to deal with the impacts of the Coronavirus, in the form of a Temporary Framework. This facilitates aid going to the companies who need it most, quickly and with more efficiently.

The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme was approved by the Commission (on 25th March) under this Temporary Framework. No exemption from the State Aid rules is required.

Since the launch of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Government has received a lot of helpful feedback on how the scheme has been working. We have been working with the financial services sector to ensure that companies feel the full benefits from this support. The Government will continue to seek to identify new areas for improvement across the scheme as a whole.

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