Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to support businesses in villages to recover from the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has introduced a comprehensive package of measures to support businesses during these unprecedented times.

We have announced schemes providing access to loans, designed to help businesses across the UK impacted by the Coronavirus crisis to access the funding they need:

• The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme provides businesses with annual turnover of under £45m with access to working capital of up to £5m. It supports a wide range of business finance products, including term loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance facilities.
• The Bounce Back Loans Scheme supports the smallest SMEs by providing loans from £2000 up to 25% of the business’ turnover with a maximum loan size of £50,000. This Scheme launched on 4 May.

The Government has also announced a package of support for businesses to help with their ongoing business costs in recognition of the disruption caused by Covid-19. In particular, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been working across Government to provide £13 billion of grant funding to help small and rural businesses and businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors manage their cashflow through this period. This support will take the form of two grant funding schemes, the Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF) and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund (RHLGF).

All businesses in England in receipt of Small Business Rates Relief (SBRR) and Rural Rates Relief (RRR) in the business rates system will be eligible for a payment of £10,000.

Businesses in England that would have been in receipt of the Expanded Retail Discount (which covers retail, hospitality and leisure) on 11 March with a rateable value of less than £51,000 will be eligible for the following cash grants per property:

• Eligible businesses in these sectors with a property that has a rateable value of up to and including £15,000 will receive a grant of £10,000.
• Eligible businesses in these sectors with a property that has a rateable value of over £15,000 and less than £51,000 will receive a grant of £25,000.