In a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee today, Lord Agnew opened by telling MPs that the British Business Bank (BBB) had ‘presided over one of the most colossal cock-ups in recent government management’ in regard to the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), stating that ‘when I was asked to stand up publicly and defend the record of the British Business Bank in this area, I simply couldn’t do it’.

He also claimed that the British Business Bank had refused to give him data while he was a minister, and that the board of the bank ‘needed to be sacked’ for their ‘clear failure’ of preventing fraudulent claims from the scheme.

Agnew closed his session stating that the BEIS committee was ‘the last line of defence’ and that they ‘needed to move fast today’.

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