3. Question No. 3—FinanceHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 3—Finance3. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) on behalf of Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: What is he doing to monitor the success of major Government spending initiatives including the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): There are a number of ways the Government monitors major spending initiatives including through regular reporting by agencies and Treasury as well as the Auditor-General's process. Given the significant amount of funding allocated for the response to COVID-19 I receive regular updates about major initiatives including the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme. Individual agencies have plans and milestones for projects which I also monitor and a team has been established to do this specifically for the COVID response and recovery fund.Hon Judith Collins: Does he consider it a failure of his that the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme which he established has only delivered $86 million in business loans when it was originally budgeted to deliver $6.25 billion?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No that was an envelope of funding provided. The scheme is still open.Hon Judith Collins: Is he disappointed then that the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme has only delivered 1.4 percent of the lending it was supposed to a lower rate of delivery than even KiwiBuild?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in my answer to the previous supplementary question the scheme is still open. In the meantime we have opened the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme which has given out well over $1 billion to small businesses and there are a range of other initiatives available as well. The concerns I've had with the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme have been documented in this House and where there are specific concerns for specific customers they're followed up.Hon Judith Collins: Why did the Government require banks to apply normal lending criteria to loans made under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government underwrote the scheme to the extent of taking 80 percent of the risk given the economic uncertainty that was at play when the scheme was established. From our perspective banks will interpret their own rules around lending. Some of them have applied much more liberal rules in terms of lending criteria; others have provided tighter rules. That is up to them. We are underwriting the scheme to 80 percent.Hon Judith Collins: What does he say to a business owner in Tauranga who was hoping to benefit from the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme but was told by his bank manager that it was just too hard to get the applications over the line because of the Government's red tape and recommended they go for an overdraft instead."?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can't speak for the specific case other than to note that—from the same article that the member is reading from—the business owner had to provide paperwork including cash-flow forecasts plans for how the business was coping with the crisis and how it would pay back the loan which seem to me to be fairly reasonable elements of a loan.Hon Judith Collins: Why would he think businesses would want to take on additional debt in the middle of a crisis when they have been calling for direct cash support such as the $100000 GST refund proposal put forward by National?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Direct cash support has gone to businesses in the form of around $11 billion through the wage subsidy scheme which many of them have written to us to say how important that has been in maintaining their business. Other schemes and funds are available."