It also estimated that 500,000 to 2.9m jobs could have been lost in the absence of the schemes, which lent £78bn to businesses during the pandemic.

Without Covid-19 loan guarantee schemes, up to 34% of bounce back loan scheme borrowers (146,000 to 505,000 businesses) and an additional 7%-28% of Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme borrowers (5,000 to 21,000 businesses) could have permanently ceased trading in 2020, according to research commissioned by the British Business Bank.

Around 60% of borrowers did not have sufficient reserves to cover at least three months of operating expenditure and around half of SMEs had less than one months’ worth of sales as cash in the bank.

British Business Bank monitoring data indicates that lenders received 1.9m applications for guaranteed loans between April 2020 and March 202153. A total of 1.7m lending facilities were approved.