Douglas Grant, Director of Conister, provides comments on GDP falling 2.6% during the November lockdown

We must now ensure that the financial security of those businesses that are sustainable can flourish in the future.

Up until now, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme have performed a fundamental role in keeping many SMEs alive and acted as an important triage system to identify and support qualifying businesses needing credit.

However, we believe that we have now passed this phase and we must recognise that many businesses will not survive this pandemic, particularly those with an unsustainable debt burden. It is imperative for the future that we now focus on identifying and protecting our most resilient business sectors.