The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) was created in February 2023, bringing together relevant parts of the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the former Department for International Trade (DIT). 2023-24 is the new Department’s first year of accounts. Notable values for investments and liabilities in the accounts include £6.4bn …
| Title | HC No. | Published | Items | Response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34th Report - Department for Business and Trade Annual Repo… | HC 818 | 25 Jun 2025 | 47 | Responded |
| 33rd Report - Supporting the UK’s priority industry sectors | HC 1070 | 25 Jun 2025 | 28 | Responded |
In the Department’s 2023–24 Annual Report and Accounts, it estimated that £866 million of the combined Horizon Schemes provisions would be settled within 1 year.8 In a letter provided after our oral evidence session, the Department confirmed that it paid a total of £701 million in scheme settlements during 2024–25, …
The BBLS was open for applications from 4 May 2020 to 31 March 2021, and in that time 1.5 million loans were issued, to a total value of £47.4 billion. The BBLS was designed to reduce the time taken to pay out the loans, in part by reducing the checks …
The Department told us, for context, that around £20 billion of the loans issued by lenders under its Covid loan guarantee schemes (which included the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme, as well as the BBLS) have been repaid in full and that …
The Department told us that it is tackling fraud in a range of ways. These include the in-house fraud team which oversees all the counter-fraud activity, an audit and assurance process carried out by BBB with oversight from a Board, which includes representatives from the Treasury and Cabinet Office as …
The Department explained that the first and primary responsibility for chasing fraud remains with the lenders. Due to the 100% guarantee provided to lenders under the BBLS, the incentive is not there to recover fraudulent loans. The Department has, however, worked with lenders to recoup some of the losses.49
The Department told us that as a result of assurance activity which has involved data and analytics, £1.1 billion of loans have been withdrawn from guarantee cover, meaning that any losses on these loans are borne by the 44 DBT ARA 2023 to 2024, pp 105-106 45 Q 27 46 …
The Department told us that at the time the BBLS was set up, the real worry was the number of businesses which could fail, and up to around half a million businesses were sustained by the intervention. However, the scheme design does not help in terms of tackling fraud and …
Government departments prepare financial statements in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM).57 As a result of the inclusion of the balances and transactions relating to the business-focused elements of BEIS the Department was required to prepare financial statements which were wider …
HM Treasury sets timetable expectations for the laying of Departmental resource accounts before Parliament in a ‘Dear Accounting Officer’ letter. This provides direction to Accounting Officers of Departments and other public bodies on preparing their Annual Report and Accounts under IFRS and the FReM. The 2023–24 letter set out that …
The Department told us that the delay in publishing its 2023–24 accounts was due to three key reasons. These were: the requirement to merge the financial information of its predecessor departments; the challenging learning curve required to account for more complex balances aligned with insufficient resources; and the complexity inherent …
The Department explained challenges it faced in being required to merge the financial information of its predecessor departments to present three years of financial information. As instructed by the FReM, the Department was required to restate comparatives for the previous period in accordance with IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements.62 …
The Department said it recognises that, with limited resources, it will be required to make difficult decisions about what it is prioritising in the forthcoming Strategy, noting that “some people will be disappointed in what we are able to do for them, because government cannot do everything.” The Department told …
We asked the Department what the forthcoming Industrial Strategy will mean for the scale and composition of its support for industry going forward. The Department told us it was preparing for an upcoming spending review and therefore could not provide more insights now, but that it was using the process …
We asked the Department about gaps in its monitoring and evaluation of support programmes.54 Of the Department’s Business Group’s 32 initiatives to support sectors, it provided monitoring and evaluation evidence for just 11.55 The Department told us there is a value for money judgement regarding where it focuses its monitoring …
We asked the Department how it would measure success. Officials told us growth was its overarching objective as measured by GDP per head and real household disposable income. The Department highlighted that trade-offs were required under an industrial strategy and deciding to support one sector over another could not be …
| Date | Witnesses | |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Apr 2025 | Carl Creswell · Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, David Bickerton · Department for Business and Trade, Gareth Davies · Department for Transport, Gareth Davies · Department for Business and Trade, Jaee Samant CBE · Department for Business and Trade, Sean Jones · HM Treasury, Tara Smith · Department for Business and Trade | View ↗ |
| Date | Direction | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 8 May 2025 | To cttee | Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and Trade re… |
| 28 Apr 2025 | To cttee | Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and Trade re… |
| 24 Apr 2025 | From cttee | Letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and Trade rela… |