Small Businesses: Finance

(asked on 29th April 2020) - View Source

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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what specific support they have identified for small and medium-size enterprises operating in (1) the tourism, (2) the hospitality, and (3) the retail sectors, (a) who are experiencing cash flow problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic, (b) who pay council tax in lieu of business rates, and (c) who have commercial mortgages and are therefore ineligible for payment holidays. [T]


Answered by
Lord Callanan Portrait
Lord Callanan
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
This question was answered on 6th May 2020

The two existing business grants schemes have helped supported many thousands of small businesses.

To ensure that Local Authorities can help these businesses, the Government has allocated additional up to £617 million funding to Local Authorities in England to allow them to provide discretionary grants.

It is our intention that the following businesses should be considered as a priority for these funds:

· Businesses in a range of shared workspaces;

· Regular market traders who do not have their own business rates assessment;

· B&Bs which pay Council Tax instead of business rates; and

· Charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief which would otherwise have been eligible for Small Business Rates Relief or Rural Rate Relief.

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