Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he has taken to support self-employed taxi drivers experiencing reductions in work as a result of the covid-19 outbreak and who require financial support to bridge the gaps between receipt of Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grants.

The Government recognises that this is a challenging time for many sectors and individuals, including self-employed taxi drivers.

The Government has acted to support those that are self-employed and have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, and announced at Budget 2021 that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will continue until September, with a fourth and a final fifth grant.

The Government will have spent over £33 billion supporting those in self-employment through the SEISS, making it one of the most generous self-employment income COVID-19 support schemes in the world.

The SEISS is not intended to provide a month-by-month replacement of income. Due to the volatility of self-employed income and the lack of granular data that HMRC holds on self-employed trading profits, precise mapping of income replacement month by month is not possible. Instead, the SEISS provides a lump sum payment to support eligible self-employed individuals whose businesses have been affected by coronavirus.

The SEISS is just one part of a wider package of support for the self-employed, which includes automatic, self-serve time-to-pay arrangements, loans, welfare support, and other business support grants.