Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support (a) high street businesses and (b) community stores during the covid-19 lockdown announced in January 2021.

This Government is fully committed to supporting the businesses and communities that make our high streets and town centres successful as the nation responds to the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Government has provided a comprehensive package of support of £200 billion to help businesses that have been affected by Covid-19. This package includes the small business grants, the coronavirus loan schemes, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, as well as deferral of income tax payments.

We are also delivering the £50 million Reopening High Streets Safely Fund to support local authorities with rolling out extra measures to support their business communities and have introduced measures protecting commercial tenants from eviction if they are unable to pay their rent.

The High Street Task Force is also playing a vital role in supporting the recovery of our local economies, through providing intelligence and evidence to support government in its response to the Covid-19 outbreak through the creation of monthly reports, a series of webinars to help support local recovery frameworks, and Covid-specific resources in the High Street Task Force’s online resource library.