Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to provide additional financial support to (a) beauty and (b) hair salons during the January 2021 covid-19 lockdown.

The Government recognises the extreme disruption the necessary actions to combat Covid-19 are having on businesses and workers in the beauty industry across the UK.

We are providing additional funding worth £4.6 billion across the UK to support businesses during the new national lockdown. All businesses in England which are legally required to close as a result of this lockdown will receive one-off grants of up to £9,000. We are also providing all English local authorities with an additional £500m of discretionary business grant funding. This extra support comes on top of existing monthly grant support for closed businesses.

We have taken additional steps to support businesses requiring access to finance by extending four of the temporary government-backed loan schemes to 31st January and introducing flexibility on some of their repayments. To protect jobs and businesses, including those in the beauty sector, we have also extended the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) for all parts of the UK until the end of April 2021.

As measures to control the virus change, it is right that government support should also evolve. Because of this, we continue to take a flexible approach and keep all impacts and policies under review.