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

Whether the Government has made an estimate of the number of businesses that do not qualify for the Government’s covid-19 grant schemes.

Local Authorities are responsible for identifying and contacting eligible businesses for either the Small Business Grants or the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants. No assessment has been made of the number of businesses not qualifying for the schemes; rather we estimate about 1 million businesses will benefit.

I am personally calling local authorities that have reported slow progress to offer any support they need to get grants out to businesses as soon as possible.