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Small Businesses: Loans

Asked by Callum AndersonLabourDepartment for Business and TradeTabled Answered 12 September 2025UIN 72263

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what plans are in place to monitor the geographic distribution of SME lending facilitated by British Business Bank schemes.

Answered by Blair McDougall

Where possible, finance facilitated by the British Business Bank is mapped to a postcode level. Much of this data is published: for instance, the number and value of Start Up Loans data is published on the BBB website every quarter. Geographic data is also used in the evaluations of BBB programmes and on reporting on the BBB’s overall KPI of deployment of finance outside of London.

In addition to publishing data on its own programmes, the BBB also publishes reports which highlight geographic patterns observed in UK small business finance. For example, the BBB's annual Small Business Finance Markets report and the annual Nations and Regions Tracker which is next due to be published in October 2025.

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