Government expands loan scheme as lockdown extended for three weeks

The government also confirmed that loans to medium and larger firms will now be included in its £330bn coronavirus support package for the economy.

Businesses with turnovers of more than £500m a year were not originally eligible for the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme, which the government introduced on Monday.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: “I want to ensure that no viable business slips through our safety net of support as we help protect jobs and the economy. That is why we are expanding this generous scheme for larger firms.

“This is a national effort and we’ll continue to work with the financial services sector to ensure that our £330bn of government support, through loans and guarantees, reaches as many businesses in need as possible”.

The news will come as a relief to some of the UK’s very largest retailers, with Associated British Foods – the owner of Primark – confirming its eligibility for the new funding in a note to the City this morning. 

British Retail Cosnsortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “We are pleased the government has listened and once again shown it will respond to the needs of the industry in this time of crisis. The expansion of CLBILS will support businesses and jobs by helping prevent retailers slipping through the gaps between the various loan schemes.

“It is essential that the scheme, along with other government interruption loans, are easy to apply for and fast to deliver much needed cash to businesses.”

The move came as foreign secretary Dominic Raab confirmed that the government would be extending the UK’s lockdown due to the virus for “at least” another three weeks.

Yesterday, the UK recorded another 861 coronavirus deaths in hospital, taking the total since the outbreak began to 13,729.

Strict limits were put in place by the government on March 23, which limited people to stay at home where possible, prevented gatherings of more than two people and forced all non-essential retail stores to close.

Raab, deputising for prime minister Boris Johnson who is still recovering from the virus, said at yesterday’s Downing Street briefing: “There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we are at both a delicate and dangerous stage in this pandemic.

“If we rush to relax the measures that we have in place we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress that has been made.”

Relaxing lockdown measures too early, Raab said, would “risk a quick return to another lockdown with all the threat to life that a second peak of the virus would bring and all the economic damage that a second lockdown would carry”.