Victory on data on Covid-19 loans to businesses

We’re pleased to report a small but significant data transparency victory that CFPD has helped win this week: the Government has changed its previous stance, and confirmed that it will publish the names of UK companies given large loans during Covid-19.

Background

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has given UK businesses (at the time of writing) over £50 billion in taxpayer-backed loans. But it hasn’t published information on which companies have used the loan schemes, or how much they've borrowed - so we don’t know a lot about the impact or use of these schemes.

In August, the Financial Times asked the government to confirm which companies had received taxpayer-backed cash. The government refused to share this data, saying it was protected by “commercial sensitivities and data protection laws”.

Taking action

Here at the Centre for Public Data, we spotted that this stance didn’t seem to be in line with the law. The legislation is clear - government-backed loans over €100k must be published.

So we wrote a briefing and shared it with the chair of the BEIS Select Committee, Darren Jones MP.

Darren asked a written question to remind BEIS of its responsibilities to share data - and the reply came back from the department that yes, it would be sharing the information, after all.

What this means

So good news! We should soon learn which companies have received government-backed loans - legally, the information must be published within 12 months of the date of the loan, so the first data should appear in spring 2021.

This will help us better understand the spread and impact of loans, deter future fraud, and generally support efficient use of taxpayers’ money.

Why loan data is important

Unsurprisingly, given the emergency nature of the loans schemes, evidence is now emerging of extensive fraud. We wonder if publishing this data faster - or in in real time - might have deterred fraudsters, and helped companies spot cases of identity theft.

Still, late is definitely better than never, and we’re pleased to see the UK catching up with the US Federal Government, which has been publishing data on its equivalent loans since July.

Update (Jan 2021): The Times covers the Government’s change of stance; we’re still waiting for the first publication of the data.

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See the Twitter thread about this, and see our briefing shared with MPs.