Small Businesses: Non-domestic Rates

(asked on 4th May 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people employed in businesses in (a) Leeds, (b) Yorkshire and the Humber and (c) the UK that are ineligible to receive funding through the Small Business rate relief as a result of their employers paying business rates as part of their rent or through serviced office costs.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 11th May 2020

Government has made £12.3 billion available to businesses under the Small Business Grants Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants Fund. The schemes have been tied to the business rates system to provide a framework for local authorities to make payments to businesses as quickly as possible as these businesses are likely to face particularly high fixed costs, such as fixed rents.

As of 3 May, over 697,000 businesses in England have received grants under the two schemes, totalling £8.6bn. We do not hold data on the number of people employed by businesses that are not eligible for this grant funding. We have, however, published a full breakdown of grant funding allocated to and distributed by each local authority here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-grant-funding-localauthority-payments-to-small-and-medium-businesses.

On 1 May, the Business Secretary announced a further up to £617 million available to local authorities to support small businesses previously outside the scope of the business grant funding, such as businesses in shared offices and regular market traders who do not have their own business rates assessment. For more details, please see: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/top-up-to-local-business-grant-funds-scheme.

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