Covid-19: Small Businesses

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I will certainly bear the comments made by the noble Baroness in mind. Local authorities across England have been allocated a further £500 million in discretionary funding via the additional restrictions grant to support businesses from 5 January. This could include businesses supplying the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors or businesses outside the current business rates system which have effectively been forced to close

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government looking at the devolved Administrations? In some cases, they have been more agile in addressing gaps in support for small businesses, such as Northern Ireland’s Covid Restrictions Business Support Scheme which provides grants for supply chain businesses. A similar scheme is operating in Wales. This would certainly give some help to the live music sector, which continues to be hard hit. Technical supply companies have seen a disastrous 95% drop in their revenues.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said earlier, we keep all these matters under review. We are conscious that our scheme is one of the most generous in Europe, with £280 billion-worth of support. Of course, we are always willing to learn lessons from the devolved Administrations or other countries.