Charities: Coronavirus

(asked on 5th May 2020) - View Source

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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether charities based in the UK which advocate for street children are include in the support being offered to small and medium enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Answered by
Lord Callanan Portrait
Lord Callanan
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
This question was answered on 20th May 2020

A £750 million funding package announced on 8 April is aimed at charities who provide frontline services to vulnerable people affected by the pandemic in the UK. The Government funding will be allocated based on evidence of service need. There are three tranches of money;

  • £360m from individual government departments to charities in England based on evidence of service need;
  • £370m for small and medium-sized charities (£60m through the Devolved Administrations) will provide support for thousands of charities on the frontline of helping vulnerable people affected by Covid-19.
  • Match funding of the, so far, £35m raised during the BBC’s Big Night In. The first £20m of this will go to the National Emergencies Trust and the remaining will go through the BBC charities who will be administering this funding.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is providing £6 million of emergency funding to homelessness charities directly affected by the coronavirus. The funding will be distributed to local frontline homelessness services via the charity Homeless Link and will support organisations at risk of having to cut services and staff or cease operations due to the pandemic. Applications are now open via the Homeless Link website.

Charities are also eligible for support under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS). CBILS provides businesses with annual turnover of under £45m with access to working capital of up to £5m. It supports a wide range of business finance products, including term loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance facilities. Since Monday 27 April, registered charities have been exempted from the requirement that the applicant derives at least 50% of its income from trading activity.

Charities are also eligible for the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), which launched on Monday 4 May and supports the smallest SMEs by providing loans from £2,000 up to 25% of the business’ turnover with a maximum loan size of £50,000. By providing lenders with a 100% government-backed guarantee and standardising the application form, businesses and charities applying for these loans could receive them within days.

Further details on CBILS and BBLS can be found on GOV.UK or the British Business Bank website.

On 1 May, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced that a further up to £617 million is being made available to Local Authorities in England to allow them to provide discretionary grants. It is the Government’s intention that charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief should be considered as one of the priority businesses for these funds.

Any enquiries regarding eligibility for, or provision of the Small Business Grant Fund should be directed to the relevant local authority.

These schemes are part of a wider package of measures designed to support small businesses and charities facing difficulties in this period of uncertainty, which for charities could include, for example, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Tax Deferral scheme, a temporary freeze on evictions and the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme.

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