Recommendation 19

We asked HM Treasury what it was doing to ensure that, if emergency support such as business support schemes or loans were needed in future, those responsible would have the information they needed to act quickly, informed by lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. HM Treasury explained that it was able to draw on lessons learned from the financial crisis of 2007–2009 when designing some of the COVID-19 schemes. In particular, HM Treasury said that it was useful to be able to draw on the design of measures used to address the effects of the financial crisis when it was designing the Covid Corporate Financing Facility, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme. In contrast, it explained that there was no relevant precedent that HM Treasury could use to help design the Bounce Back Loan Scheme. As a result, HM Treasury recognised that there was a huge amount that could be learned from that scheme. We stressed that these lessons should be recorded in such a way that their usefulness does not depend on current HM Treasury staff being available when the lessons need to be drawn upon.44 39 Committee of Public Accounts, Initial lessons from the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Thirteenth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 175, 25 July 2021 40 Q 5 41 Q 49 42 Qq 52, 54 43 Qq 2, 5 44 Q 42 16 COVID-19 cost tracker update