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This morning the Chancellor announced additional grant support funding under the lockdown with came into force today.

The current government guidance on which businesses must close can be found here.


Retail, Hospitality & Leisure

Under today’s announcement, there will be a one-off top up grant for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses that are required to close under law as follows:

  • £4,000 for businesses whose premises have a rateable value of £15,000 or below;
  • £6,000 for businesses whose premises have a rateable of £15,001 and £51,000;
  • £9,000 for businesses whose premises have a rateable value of more than £51,000.

Please note that this funding will be administered by your local council, and we expect the process to be the same as for the “old” £10,000 grants in March/April 2020.


Local Restrictions Support Grant (Closed)

For businesses required to close by law under the restrictions, this funding is going to continue:

  • £1,334 for businesses whose premises have a rateable value of £15,000 or below;
  • £2,000 for businesses whose premises have a rateable of £15,001 and £51,000;
  • £3,000 for businesses whose premises have a rateable value of more than £51,000.

Currently, there has been no support announced for businesses that are remaining open but facing reduced demand. We will keep this under review and update you if any further support is announced.


Discretionary Funding

Additional funding is to be provided to local Councils which can be used to support “other impacted businesses”.

Please note that to date, it has been for the Council to decide who will qualify for such grants. As such we have no additional details on how or when any such grants may be available to apply for until Liverpool Council launch any new scheme.


Furlough

Today’s announcement did not make any changes to the existing furlough scheme which continues to run until 30 April 2021. At the moment only employees that were on a payroll submission on or before 30 October 2020 are eligible to be furloughed.

The fact that this cut-off date is now out of date could well lead to a change being announced in the coming days, but at present the old date of 30 October 2020 continues to be the relevant date.


Self Employed Income Support Scheme

The previous announcements on this continue to be in place. For those eligible, grants of up to 80% of self-employment profits are available (based on income in the 2018/19 tax year).

The third grant is open to applications until 29 January 2021 for self employed individuals (not those trading through a limited company) who meet certain criteria. Details of the scheme are here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-grant-through-the-coronavirus-covid-19-self-employment-income-support-scheme

A fourth grant will be open to applications from February 2021.



If you are unsure as to how the lockdown may affect your business, or have any queries on how we can help you at this time, please contact Mark McKenna or Clair Coburn directly to see how we can help.

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