Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to support businesses that had applications for covid-19 grant funding declined because (a) their business rates are included in their rent or (b) their offices are based from home.

The Government is aware that some small businesses have found themselves excluded from the existing business grants schemes because of the way they interact with the business rates system. That is why the Government has allocated up to an additional £617 million to Local Authorities to enable them to give discretionary grants to businesses in this situation. The Government’s intention is for Local Authorities to prioritise the following types of business when making discretionary grants:

· Small businesses in shared offices or other flexible work spaces e.g. industrial parks, science parks, incubators etc, which do not have their own business rates assessment;

· 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 focus payments on those priority groups which are most relevant to their local areas. Local Authorities may also choose to pay grants to businesses outside of these priority groups, according to local economic need, so long as the business was trading on 11th March, and has not received any other cash grant funded by central Government.

Businesses which cannot receive a grant from any of the grants schemes should still be able to benefit from other elements of the Government’s unprecedented package of economic support, including:

• An option to defer VAT payments by up to twelve months;
• The Bounce Back Loan Scheme, which will ensure that small and micro businesses can quickly access loans of up to £50,000 which are 100% guaranteed by the Government;
• The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, now extended to cover all businesses including those which would be able to access commercial credit;
• The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, to support businesses with their wage bill; and
• The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, to provide support to the self-employed.