Support for businesses affected by COVID-19

On Friday 20 March, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a range of measures to support public services, people and businesses through this period of disruption caused by COVID-19.

We’ve had a lot of questions on the reimbursement of the 80% of wages for employees and Statutory Sick Pay. During the announcement on Friday, the Chancellor stated that the payment will be in the form of a grant available from HMRC, available by the end of April (backdated to 1 March 2020). At this time, although HRMC systems are not currently set up to facilitate these payments, they are currently looking to do this with an increased sense of urgency.

We initially detailed a summary of the measures in our article released shortly after the announcement. 

The Government has since provided guidance on these support measures, you can find this here. It includes information on the following:

• a Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
• deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
• a Statutory Sick Pay relief package for SMEs
• a 12-month business rates holiday for all retail, hospitality, leisure and nursery businesses in England
• small business grant funding of £10,000 for all business in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief
• grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
• the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme offering loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank. We will have more information on this shortly.
• a new lending facility from the Bank of England to help support liquidity among larger firms, helping them bridge coronavirus disruption to their cash flows through loans
• the HMRC Time To Pay Scheme

Thorntons Law have put together a helpful article which answers some of the questions you might have regarding the ‘Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme’, you can find this here.

We are continuously monitoring the situation and once more information is obtained, we will advise you of the process. For more information or to discuss how these new measures will impact you and your business, please get in touch with your usual EQ contact or call any of our offices.