Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Johnson of Lainston on 1 February (HL1695), what assessment they have made of the impact of not renewing the Recovery Loan Scheme on small businesses in deprived areas who have previously been turned down for loans by high street banks.

Lenders are currently offering over £100 million of additional lending per month through the British Business Bank’s Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS), with 85 per cent of facilities going to small and micro businesses. RLS is particularly effective at serving alternative and social lenders, with more than three quarters of lending delivered through smaller lenders, including Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI). Since launch, RLS has enabled almost £50 million of CDFI lending: over 90% of the businesses which borrowed from CDFIs in 2023 had been turned down by another lender, and half were based in the UK’s most disadvantaged areas.