Small Business Grants Fund

(asked on 12th May 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that wedding venue operators with rateable values above the cap for the Small Business Grant Fund have access to other covid-19 related grant funding.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 18th May 2020

The Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund are part of Government’s unprecedented package of support for businesses to help with their ongoing business costs in recognition of the disruption caused by Covid-19.

Businesses that were in receipt of Small Business Rate Relief or Rural Rate Relief as of 11 March 2020 will be eligible for the Small Business Grants Fund. Under the Retail, Leisure and Hospitality Grants Fund, businesses that would have been in receipt of the Expanded Retail Discount Scheme with properties that have a rateable value of under £51,000 are eligible for cash grants of up to £25,000 per property. Businesses with a rateable value of £51,000 or over are not eligible for this scheme.

Businesses which are not eligible for the grant schemes should be able to benefit from other measures, including:

  • An option to defer VAT payments by up to twelve months;
  • The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, now extended to cover all businesses including those which would be able to access commercial credit;
  • The Bounce Back Loan scheme, which will ensure that small and micro businesses can quickly access loans of up to £50,000 which are 100% guaranteed by the Government;
  • The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, to support businesses with their wage bills;
  • The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, to provide support to the self-employed.

Businesses can search for available support via the business support finder tool at: https://www.gov.uk/business-coronavirus-support-finder.

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