Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how money has been allocated that was not spent from the (a) Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund and (b) Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.

Local authorities spent the vast majority of the funding which they were allocated for the Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund, which closed to new applicants at the end of August. The c. £18 million of underspends from the Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund have been used to help pay for the costs of other COVID-19 business support schemes.

We have since allocated an additional £1.1 billion to local authorities for the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG), a new discretionary business support scheme. The ARG is intended to complement the Local Restrictions Support Grant schemes, which provide per-month grant amounts to businesses facing restrictions in Tier 2 and 3 areas.

The first two Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grants received claims from 2.7 million individuals totalling £13.7bn. HMRC and HMT are working closely together to track the cost of the scheme and ensure HMRC receives appropriate levels of funding to deliver each grant, including the two further SEISS grants announced by the Chancellor.