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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason the coach industry was ineligible for support from the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund; and what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the coach industry.

Eligibility for the RHLGF was based on businesses being in scope of the Expanded Retail Discount Scheme for Business Rates, as set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/business-rates-retail-discount-guidance.

This eligibility definition was agreed as a way of ensuring that Local Authorities could target businesses at pace and ensure that the process of disbursing funding could proceed quickly.

The Department for Transport is monitoring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the coach industry. Ministers and officials have met with the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) and considered an assessment provided by the CPT on the impact of COVID-19 on the coach industry.

Baroness Vere of Norbiton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Transport, hosted a roundtable with the CPT and coach operators on the 15 July, and on 13 August spoke with the CPT’s CEO to discuss wider issues facing the coach sector. Department for Transport officials continue to meet with the CPT regularly to discuss a range of issues including the challenges facing the coach industry.