Chancellor Rishi Sunak says he is not convinced of the need for 100% government-backed loans for businesses to help them through the coronavirus crisis.
Business groups and shadow business secretary Ed Miliband have called for the Government to fully back the loans to speed up the system and get more cash to small and medium-sized firms.
But at today's Downing Street press conference, Mr Sunak said: “On this question of the guarantees, I’m not persuaded that moving to 100% guarantee is the right thing to do.
“If you take a step back and look at the sum total of everything we’ve done to support business - we’ve done a lot of direct cash support in the form of grants going to businesses; we’ve cut business rates for a large number businesses; a million different businesses in each of those are benefitting.
“We’re paying statutory sick pay bills and of course we have a very generous furlough scheme to help businesses.
“Some people have made comparisons with what’s going on in other countries. I think when you look at the totality of what we’re doing it’s more significant in scope and scale that of these other countries. And indeed where they have used loan guarantees that are different to ours, it’s partly because they’re not doing some of the things we’re doing.”
Mr Sunak hailed today's announcement of more than £1bn in support for businesses.
He said: “We’ve never seen an economic crisis like this.
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“Times like this demand that we put aside ideology and orthodoxy. Times like this demand that the state turns to its most immediate purpose: the protection and support of its people.
“The goal of these new schemes is to maintain as many people as possible in their existing jobs, to support viable businesses to stay afloat and to protect the incomes of the self-employed to allow them to trade again. To maintain, in other words, our economy’s prodictive capacity so that we can bridge through this crisis.”