Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what (a) policies and (b) grant and funding programmes his Department has introduced to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and what funding has been allocated to each of those programmes in the 2020-21 financial year.

Throughout the pandemic, the Government’s priority has been to save lives and protect jobs, businesses, and livelihoods. To support workers and businesses across all sectors the Government has provided an unprecedented package of support worth more than £280 billion.

In light of current restrictions, businesses in retail, hospitality and leisure facing forced closure in England are eligible for a one-off grant worth up to £9,000 to help them through to Spring. This is on top of the existing Local Restriction Support Grant (Closed) which will continue to offer businesses support of up to £3,000 for each month they closed.

Local authorities are being provided with a top up to the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) worth £500 million, bringing the total value of ARG to over £1.6 billion. This grant ensures local authorities can support, on a discretionary basis, businesses not eligible for other grants but still affected by restrictions.

Businesses across the UK can continue to apply for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which as of mid-December had supported 9.9 million jobs. The Government has also extended the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) until the end of April 2021, with a boosted package of support providing the self-employed with grants covering 80% of average trading profits. So far SEISS has seen 2.7 million self-employed workers make claims under the scheme totaling £13.7 billion.

Businesses needing access to liquidity can also apply for guaranteed loans through various loan schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme. Over 1.4 million small and medium sized companies have received Government-backed loans, worth over £68 billion.

This support comes on top of billions of pounds’ worth of business rates reliefs, tax deferrals, and other labour market schemes.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has introduced a number of programmes to support individuals and organisations through the COVID-19 outbreak – spending £5.8 billion in our response to the pandemic. These programmes include funding to support pressure on social care and other services in local government, funding for rough sleepers and the Next Steps Accommodation Programme, and for council tax relief (Hardship Fund).

Full details of my Department’s COVID-19 funding is available in the NAO COVID Tracker: https://nao-mesh.shinyapps.io/Covid_cost_tracker/.