Question to the HM Treasury:

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to help small and medium-sized businesses recover from the covid-19 pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, the Government has sought to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods while also supporting businesses of all sizes across the UK. We put in place an economic support package totaling £352 billion through the furlough and self-employed income support schemes, as well as support for businesses of all sizes through grants and loans, business rates and VAT relief, and a commercial rents moratorium.

We want to help small businesses across the UK to scale and grow as they recover from the pandemic. At Budget, we announced Help to Grow: Digital and Management. Help to Grow: Digital provides a new online platform and voucher to support SMEs to adopt software which could help them save time and money and grow faster. Help to Grow: Management offers a new, world-leading management skills training programme to upskill 30,000 small businesses across the UK over three years, to help boost their business’s performance, resilience, and long-term growth through practical leadership and management training.