Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will amend the terms of the Self-Employed Income Support scheme to enable people that registered as self-employed with HMRC after 6 April 2019 to access that scheme.

It has not been possible to include those who began trading after the 2018-19 tax year in the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). This was a very difficult decision and it was taken for practical reasons.

Unlike employee income, self-employed income is not reported monthly, but at the end of each tax year on the individual’s Income Tax Self Assessment return. This means that the most reliable and up-to-date record of self-employed income is from 2018-19 tax returns, which were due at the end of January 2020.

The Government recognises that those who started trading more recently will not have submitted a tax return for the 2018-19 tax year, and it considered alternative approaches. However, HMRC would not be able to distinguish genuine self-employed individuals who started trading in 2019-20 from fake applications by fraudulent operators and organised criminal gangs seeking to exploit the SEISS.