- Chancellor announces one-off top up grants for retail,
hospitality and leisure businesses worth up to £9,000 per
property to help businesses through to the Spring
- £594 million discretionary fund also made available to
support other impacted businesses
- comes in addition to £1.1 billion further discretionary
grant funding for Local Authorities, Local Restriction
Support Grants worth up to £3,000 a month and extension of
furlough scheme
This follows the Prime Minister’s announcement last night
that these business will be closed until at least February
half-term in order to help control the virus, and, together
with the wide range of existing support, provides them with
certainty through the Spring period.
The cash is provided on a per-property basis to support
businesses through the latest restrictions, and is expected
to benefit over 600,000 business properties, worth £4
billion in total across all nations of the UK.
Chancellor said:
The new strain of the virus presents us all with a huge
challenge - and whilst the vaccine is being rolled out,
we have needed to tighten restrictions further.
Throughout the pandemic we’ve taken swift action to
protect lives and livelihoods and today we’re announcing
a further cash injection to support businesses and jobs
until the Spring.
This will help businesses to get through the months ahead
– and crucially it will help sustain jobs, so workers can
be ready to return when they are able to reopen.
A further £594 million is also being made available for
Local Authorities and the Devolved Administrations to
support other businesses not eligible for the grants, that
might be affected by the restrictions. Businesses should
apply to their Local Authorities.
The new one-off grants come in addition to billions of
existing business support, including grants worth up to
£3,000 for closed businesses, and up to £2,100 per month
for impacted businesses once they reopen.
The government has also provided 100% business rates relief
for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, £1.1
billion existing discretionary funding for Local
Authorities, the furlough scheme now extended to April and
100% government backed loans, extended until March.
- the one-off top-ups will be granted to closed
businesses as follows:
- £4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000
or under
- £6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between
£15,000 and £51,000
- £9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over
£51,000
- business support is a devolved policy and therefore the
responsibility of the devolved administrations, which will
receive additional funding as a result of these
announcements in the usual manner:
- the Scottish Government will receive £375 million
- the Welsh Government will receive £227 million
- the Northern Ireland Executive will receive £127
million
- this is on top of the increased funding which has
already been guaranteed by the UK Government, to continue
to provide the devolved administrations the certainty they
need to plan for their COVID-19 response in the months
ahead
- small businesses in the devolved administrations should
also be able to benefit from other UK-wide measures in the
government’s unprecedented package of support for business,
including the various business lending schemes (where the
repayment terms were made easier as part of the Winter
Economy Plan), and the extension of the Self Employment
Income Support Scheme
