“Loophole” is never a helpful phrase. The point is that (in tier 2) you can “gather” indoors (and having lunch together with people outside your household is gathering) if it is “reasonably necessary for work purposes” (and some other purposes).
https://twitter.com/steve_hawkes/status/1319026454714265607
See 
I don’t see that it is right to say that *any* business lunch is covered. It has to be “reasonably necessary” for work purposes. That means there as to be a pretty good reason why the business couldn’t sensibly be done on a Zoom call.
That said, it’s hard to see how in practice the “reasonably necessary” condition is going to be enforced.
Once the “work purposes” claim is made, and it’s established that there is a genuine business relationship, seeing if the lunch was “reasonably necessary” would need an inquiry into the nature of the business and relationship which is likely to be too complex to be bothered with.
But it’s another example of a divergence between (a) what the rules actually say and (b) what Ministers say the rules are which isn’t helpful to compliance and respect for the law.
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