Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure financing business development is affordable for small UK firms.

Through the Growth Guarantee Scheme (GGS), government supports small UK firms to access loans they could otherwise only obtain on worse terms, or not at all. At Mansion House, the government expanded GGS to support £3.35 billion of lending a year by 2028/29 and extended maximum loan terms to ten years. The Start Up Loans programme also offers loans of up to £25,000 at a fixed 7.5% interest rate for businesses that have been trading for up to five years. Together, these measures help small firms access affordable finance for activities such as business development.