Covid-19: Business

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that we can call the maximum number of speakers.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

Can my noble friend confirm that businesses in multioccupancy properties where business rates are shared among the businesses and added to the rental agreement are able to access business grants through local authorities? Many businesses I have spoken to have said that they have not been able to do that so far. If not, what is available and how quickly can they access it? Like all businesses, they are having to make adjustments for safe working, and this all comes at a cost.

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for her question. We have announced a package of support to help businesses with their ongoing business costs in recognition of the disruption caused. This package includes the small business grant fund, specifically for hereditaments in England that were eligible for relief on 11 March under the small business rates relief fund. The funding is to support small and rural businesses which are ratepayers on a property, as these businesses are more likely to have ongoing fixed costs during this period. Unfortunately, businesses that were not eligible for percentage SBRR relief on 11 March are excluded.

Nevertheless, there are other new measures to provide support to those businesses, including CBILS, deferral of the next quarter of back-payments for firms until the end of June, representing a £30 billion injection into the economy, and a new fast-track finance scheme providing loans with a 100% government guarantee. In addition, there is also the bounce-back loan scheme, which will ensure that the smallest businesses can access loans in a matter of days. We are working currently with local authorities to try to make sure that this support is delivered as fast as possible.