Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 19 May 2020 to Question 45620 on the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, if he will make it his policy to enable accountants to submit applications to the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme on behalf of their self-employed clients.

The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) was designed in order to make it deliverable quickly and to minimise the risk of fraud. Expanding the scope to include provision for accountants and other agents to make applications on behalf of their clients would have taken significantly longer to deliver, at a time when speed is a priority.

Self-employed people who are eligible for the SEISS were able to make claims from 13 May 2020, and by midnight 24 May 2020 about 2.3 million people had successfully claimed the SEISS. The claims process for the SEISS is easy and straightforward, with HMRC doing all of the calculations.