Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide additional economic support to areas affected by local restrictions put in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since March the Government’s priority has been to save lives and protect jobs, businesses, and livelihoods. The Government has supported people and businesses via an unprecedented package of financial support worth more than £280 billion.

As of 5 January, England entered a national lockdown in order to manage a new variant of the virus. Under these England-wide restrictions, businesses can continue to apply for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which has been extended until the end of April 2021 and has helped to pay the wages of people in 9.9 million jobs across the UK. Support continues also to be available for the self-employed through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) which will cover 80% of trading profits and is open until the end of April 2021. So far SEISS has seen 2.7 million self-employed workers make claims under the scheme totaling £13.7bn

Businesses needing access to liquidity can also apply for guaranteed loans through various loan schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, until the end of March 2021. Over 1.4 million small and medium sized companies have received government-backed loans, worth over £68 billion

With the new restrictions, the Chancellor announced that an additional one-off grant worth up to £9,000 will be offered to businesses in retail, hospitality and leisure facing forced closure in England to help them through to spring. This is alongside the existing Local Restriction Support Grant (closed) which will continue to offer businesses support of up to £3000 for each month they closed.

England’s Local authorities and devolved administrations will also receive a £594 million top-up to the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) which has already provided local authorities with £1.1 billion throughout the Autumn. This ensures that local authorities can provide discretionary support to businesses not eligible for existing grants, but which may still be affected by the restrictions. Business grant policy remains a fully devolved area with Devolved Administrations receiving their share of this funding through the Barnett formula in the usual way.

This support comes on top of billions of pounds’ worth of Rate Reliefs, tax deferrals, and other labour market schemes.