Thousands of businesses including restaurants and hotels have had their livelihoods curtailed by Covid-19 restrictions that have forced them to close early or seen customers cancel bookings.
More and more areas are heading into Tier 2 as Covid cases rise.
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a series of new measures to help those businesses that are still open but have been adversely affected by local restrictions nonetheless.
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Support available falls into these three areas:
Job Support Scheme (JSS)
When it was originally announced, the Job Support Scheme – which will come into effect on 1 November – saw employers paying a third of their employees’ wages for hours not worked, and required employers to be working 33% of their normal hours.
Now, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak has made changes to the schem e - called which reduces the employer contribution to those unworked hours to just 5%, and reduces the minimum hours requirements to 20%, so those working just one day a week will be eligible. That means that if someone was being paid £587 for their unworked hours, the government would be contributing £543 and their employer only £44.
Employers will continue to receive the £1,000 Job Retention Bonus.
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The Job Support Scheme - Closed, for businesses legally required to close, remains unchanged.
Self-employed grant
The amount of profits covered by the two forthcoming self-employed grants increases from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, meaning the maximum grant will increase from £1,875 to £3,750.
This is a potential further £3.1 billion of support to the self-employed through November to January alone, with a further grant to follow covering February to April.
Full details are on the
Business Grants
The Chancellor has also announced approved additional funding to support cash grants of up to £2,100 per month primarily for businesses in the hospitality, accommodation and leisure sector who may be adversely impacted by the restrictions in high-alert level areas.
The funding will allow Local Authorities (LAs) to support businesses in high-alert level areas which are not legally closed and will be based on the number of hospitality, hotel, B&B, and leisure businesses in each Local Authority area.
- LAs will receive a funding amount that will be the equivalent of:
- For properties with a rateable value of £15,000 or under, grants of £934 per month.
- For properties with a rateable value of between £15,000-£51,000, grants of £1,400 per month.
- For properties with a rateable value of £51,000, grants of £2,100 per month.
These grants could benefit around 150,000 businesses in England, including hotels, restaurants, B&Bs and many more who aren’t legally required to close but have been adversely affected by local restrictions nonetheless.
The details are set out in on the gov.uk website.