Perhaps there is a good reason for all this secrecy, but if so it also seems to be a secret. In the absence of a reasonable explanation the unavoidable conclusion must be that this is yet another example of the British state’s fetish for concealment.
It really doesn’t have to be this way. The way US institutions have reacted shows us that sunlight – not bleach, Donald – is the best disinfectant for business and nothing to be feared in an open society. Last week the Fed announced that it would publish a monthly list of companies that lean on its support schemes.
The transparency drive planned by chairman Jerome Powell will cover emergency taxpayer lending to big businesses and to those smaller companies with fewer than 10,000 employees who use the “Main Street lending programme”. The Fed will publish the names of borrowers, how much they borrowed and at what rate, among other basic data.
There is still time for Andrew Bailey and Rishi Sunak to follow this example. The alternative may be for the UK to become a kind of international haven for those companies seeking support without scrutiny.
Secrecy always risks giving the impression that something untoward is going on, which of course should not be the case with CCFF or furlough or the other life support schemes for the economy.
There should be no shame in any business in genuine need making use of the support on offer. Indeed, all the opinion polls indicate strong support for these emergency measures and a willingness to accept that decision making on the run is imperfect.
Concealing from this sympathetic public the details of how their purse is being deployed on their behalf can only undermine the effort. What is more, when the errors that will inevitably be made are eventually highlighted, they will be received as scandal rather than anomalies in a more benign big picture.