Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans he has to encourage take up of the social investment tax relief scheme to rebuild communities after the covid-19 outbreak.

SITR is designed to support a broad range of social enterprises, which may have a variety of social missions and community benefits. The Government committed to a full review of SITR within two years of its expansion, and published a Call for Evidence last year on the use of the SITR scheme to date, including as to why it has been used less than anticipated and what impact it has had on access to finance for social enterprises. A Summary of Responses to the Call for Evidence will be published in due course.

The Government is committed to helping social enterprises and charities through the COVID-19 outbreak. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has helped to accelerate the release of previously committed dormant bank account money. This initiative has enabled Big Society Capital to establish and capitalise a Resilience and Recovery Loan Fund, which aims to improve access to the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) for social enterprises.