Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will take steps to ensure that small companies that pay business rates indirectly through rent payments to a multi-tenanted facility are eligible for support from the Small Business Grants Fund in the same way as if they paid business rates directly.

The two existing business grants schemes have helped supported many thousands of small businesses. However, we are aware that many small businesses which are facing high fixed costs are finding themselves excluded from the existing grants schemes because the way they interact with the current business rates system means they are not eligible for the grants schemes.

To ensure that Local Authorities can help these businesses, on 1 May 2020 the Business Secretary announced that a further up to £617 million is being made available to Local Authorities in England to allow them to provide discretionary grants. This additional Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs but not liable for business rates or rates reliefs. It is our intention that the following businesses should be considered as a priority for these funds:

• Businesses in a range of shared workspaces;
• Regular market traders who do not have their own business rates assessment;
• B&Bs which pay Council Tax instead of business rates; and
• Charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief which would otherwise have been eligible for Small Business Rates Relief or Rural Rate Relief.

Local authorities may choose to make payments to other businesses based on local economic need and subject to those businesses meeting the specific eligibility criteria.