Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what policy changes he plans to make in response to the findings of a Federation of Wholesale Distributors survey that (a) 50 per cent of the 150 food and drink wholesale businesses surveyed, all of which have a turnover of £45 million or lower, are in danger of going into liquidation in the next three months to a year, (b) 70 per cent of those respondents supply food and drink to schools, care homes, hospitals and (c) £270 million worth of public sector contracts are at risk without urgent financial support; and if he will make a statement.

The Government has announced unprecedented support for business and workers to protect them against the current economic emergency including almost £300 billion of guarantees – equivalent to 15% of UK GDP. Local Authorities (LAs) can choose to make discretionary grants to businesses in supply chains, like wholesale distributors, if they feel there is a particular local economic need. The Government has allocated up to £617 million to LAs to enable them to give discretionary grants to businesses in this situation. LAs may choose to focus payments on those priority groups which are most relevant to their local areas or to businesses outside of these priority groups, so long as the business was trading on 11th March, and has not received any other cash grant funded by central Government.

Wholesale distributors continue to have access to other elements of the Government’s unprecedented package of support for business, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the four government-backed loan schemes for firms of all sizes. The Business Support website provides further information about how businesses can access the support that has been made available, who is eligible and how to apply - https://www.gov.uk/business-coronavirus-support-finder.

On 11 May the Government published its COVID-19 recovery strategy which sets out our plan for moving to the next phase of our response. The strategy sets out a cautious roadmap for easing existing measures in a safe and measured way. On 15 June the non-essential retail sector reopened. The roadmap will be kept constantly under review, and we will continue to work hard to support business and workers as the situation evolves.