Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on extending the Small Business Grant and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant to organisations receiving charity rates relief.

Charities which occupy properties used for retail, hospitality or leisure purposes, such as charity shops, may be eligible for a grant from the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund. The RHLGF provides businesses with a £25,000 cash grant per property, for each property used for retail, hospitality or leisure purposes with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000; and a £10,000 cash grant per property, for each property used for these purposes with a rateable value of £15,000 or below which is not in receipt of Small Business Rates Relief or Rural Rates Relief. Businesses and organisations may receive a maximum of €800,000 from the RHLGF under State Aid rules.

The Government is aware that some small businesses and organisations have found themselves excluded from the existing business grants schemes because of the way they interact with the business rates system. That is why the Government has allocated up to an additional £617 million to Local Authorities to enable them to give discretionary grants to businesses in this situation. The Government’s intention is for Local Authorities to prioritise the following types of organisations when making discretionary grants:

• Small businesses in shared offices or other flexible work spaces for example, industrial parks, science parks, incubators etc, which do not have their own business rates assessment;
• Regular market traders who do not have their own business rates assessment;
• B&Bs which pay Council Tax instead of business rates; and
• Charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief which would otherwise have been eligible for Small Business Rates Relief or Rural Rate Relief

Local Authorities may choose to focus payments on those priority groups which are most relevant to their local areas. Local Authorities may also choose to pay grants to businesses outside of these priority groups, according to local economic need, so long as the business was trading on 11^th March, and has not received any other cash grant funded by central Government.