Latin: To whom is it a benefit?
It has now been three years, to the day, since the UK Government told citizens they were not allowed to go to work. Most people obeyed the diktat without question. The employed were induced/encouraged to do so with the help of furlough payments equivalent to a salary of up to £30,000 per year. Small businesses were given loans of up to £50,000 with no-then-low interest, and gifts from local councils of £10,000 or £25,000. If such businesses had qualifying sites in more than one council’s area, they received a gift from every council. Bigger businesses were loaned larger amounts, also with no-then-low interest.
Bounce Back Loans (BBL) to the smallest businesses totalled £47.36 billion. Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) totalled £26.39 billion. Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) totalled £5.56 billion. All told, £80 billion of debt injected into British businesses. £17 billion of the BBL loans (just over a third) is expected to be lost, £5 billion of it to fraud.
The sum of the council gifts – Local Authority Business Support Grants – was £21.3 billion. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (furlough) cost £70 billion.
For comparison the 2022/23 budget for the Department of Health and Social Care in England is £180.2 billion.
The British Business Bank (BBB) is taxpayer-owned. It is an entity created by the UK Government in 2014 (under Cameron). BBB guaranteed 100% of BBL and 80% of CBILS and CLBILS. In its launch press release on 3 November 2014 Business Minister Matt Hancock said: “This is a landmark in British banking history. Our Business Bank has got huge potential to help small business thrive.”
The beneficiaries of the largesse are the banks, entirely at British citizens’ cost. The total number of businesses in the UK has reduced by almost half a million (472,000) since 2020 (source: House of Commons Library).
How has your business faired in the last three years?