Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will (a) review his policy on payments made under the Self Employment Income Support Scheme in order to discount average trading profits in the preceding three full tax years that were reduced as a result a self-employed woman having taken maternity leave and (b) make retrospective payments to affected women based on that revised calculation.

Under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), the Government has been able to support millions of self-employed people at scale and pace, making it one of the most generous self-employment income COVID support schemes in the world. The SEISS grant was based on data HMRC already held and could quickly and easily calculate at scale. Without this mechanism, the schemes might have run into unacceptable delay, created unmanageable manual demand, or exposed the support to fraud.

There is no way for HMRC to know the reasons why an individual’s profits may have dropped in earlier years from income tax self-assessment returns. However, by calculating the grant on average trading profits over several tax years, the SEISS supported people who saw a dip in profits for any reason.

The Government’s approach made the scheme as accessible and fair as possible, while ensuring it remained deliverable and achieved its objectives.