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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department are taking to support small businesses with increased costs associated with global supply chain issues.

The Government announced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS), which will provide a price reduction to ensure that all businesses and other non-domestic customers are protected from excessively high energy bills over the winter period. In addition, we have announced a new iteration of the Recovery Loan Scheme designed to support access to finance for UK businesses as they look to invest and grow.

To support business in mitigating supply chain issues, the Government published supply chain guidance at (https://www.cpni.gov.uk/supply-chain-resilience) to help businesses establish effective control and oversight of their supply chains.