Rishi Sunak the Chancellor has announced that businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors are to receive one-off Coronavirus grants worth up to £9,000 as part of a new £4.6 billion package to support businesses and protect jobs. This will generally only apply to retailers in prime high street locations but not to online retailers. An additional £594 million discretionary fund also made available to support other impacted businesses for which you’ll need to apply to your local authority.
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 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.”
– Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Coronavirus grants for England are:
- £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
The devolved administrations will also receive additional funding which hopefully they will disburse in the form of Coronavirus grants to impacted businesses:
- The Scottish Government will receive £375 million
- The Welsh Government will receive £227 million
- The Northern Ireland Executive will receive £127 million
Small businesses in the devolved administrations should also be able to benefit from other UK-wide measures in the government’s 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.
