The slight rise in unemployment announced this morning follows the reduction in GDP announced earlier this month. Both the economic contraction and subsequent job losses were to be expected as most of the UK entered a second lockdown, and while the numbers aren’t as severe due to the Chancellor’s interventions they do highlight the dire situation that many businesses are facing.

We must now ensure that the financial security of those businesses that are sustainable can flourish in the future. Up until now the government furlough scheme combined with access to credit through the BBLS and CBILS has kept many SMEs alive and acted as an important triage system to identify and support businesses. 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.

At Conister we have delivered upon all of our initial objectives. We had an allocation limit of £20 million for the CBILS and BBLS schemes and so far we have lent £18 million, and we will fully allocate the other £2 million in the coming weeks. Without doubt, the scale of applications was enormous and so we applied for and received an additional allocation of £5 million for the CBILS scheme and we will focus lending this to robust business sectors that we believe will thrive in the future. Conister will continue to do all it can, working alongside Government and traditional lenders, to support British businesses.