Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether companies that have (a) made compulsory redundancies and (b)re-hired workers on new terms and conditions will be eligible to receive payments under the job retention bonus.

To ensure that firms are encouraged to keep employees as demand returns, the Chancellor announced the Job Retention Bonus in the Plan for Jobs on 8 July.

Alongside other conditions, to be eligible, the employees for which the employer will receive the grant will need to have been continuously employed until 31 January 2021 and still be employed by the same employer as of 31 January 2021. Employees cannot be serving a contractual or statutory notice period, that started before 1 February 2021, for the employer making a claim.

Full guidance about the Job Retention Bonus will be published at the end of September.