1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Autumn 2021 1.2 The British Business Bank (the Bank) works to drive economic growth by making finance markets work better for smaller businesses – wherever they are in the UK and wherever they are on their business journey – enabling them to prosper and grow. As such, the Bank plays an essential role in the context of government’s wider support to business, with access to finance being one of the factors in business success. The Bank collaborates with other bodies engaged in business support, including the Devolved Administrations, Local Enterprise Partnerships and Growth Hubs. The government works closely with the Bank to ensure that our access to finance policy reflects the changing needs of UK business and as part of this we keep the Bank’s mission under review. Given the gravity of the economic consequences brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, ministers decided to act quickly to put in place government support to help small businesses access the finance they needed. In this case, decisions were necessarily taken in the absence of robust analysis since the rapidly evolving situation meant that there was limited data available. The Bank responded at speed to implement the Bounce Back Loans Scheme (the Scheme), on the instruction of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (the department). 1.3 The government is working with the Bank to explore how to further strengthen responses to future economic downturns and ensure the resilience of support to SMEs of all sizes during a future economic downturn.