Chancellor Rishi Sunak has set out measures to help England’s hospitality sector, unveiling a £1bn fund of cash grants of up to £6,000 per premises for each eligible firm.
He said the government would also help certain firms with the cost of statutory sick pay for Covid-related absences.
The initiative is in response to the collapse in footfall facing the leisure, culture and hospitality sectors as the Omicron variant causes a surge in Covid infection across the UK.
An extra £30m to help theatres and museums was included in the announcement, as it emerged that London’s Natural History Museum has had to close for a week because of Covid-related staff absences.
Sunak would not say whether further help would come should further restrictions be announced, but he insisted he would “always respond proportionately and appropriately to the situation we face”.
He added that the measures announced today were comparable to the grants that were on offer when businesses were fully closed earlier this year.
Business support and working from home
Are Sunak’s business support measures enough?
The package announced comprises:
- £683m for targeted grants for hospitality and leisure businesses in England. Around 200,000 businesses will be eligible for the grants which will be administered by local authorities and will be available in the coming weeks.
- £102m for firms outside the hospitality and leisure industries but which might be vital to the supply chains in those sectors. This is on top of £250m of previously allocated funding.
- £30m for theatres, orchestras and museums which have been forced to shut down again as people exercise extra caution in the face of the latest rise in Covid cases. This support will run through to March 2022.
- The return of the government’s statutory sick pay rebate scheme (SSPRS) for companies with fewer than 250 employees. The scheme reimburses firms for the cost of statutory sick pay for Covid-related absences, for up to two weeks per employee.
On Monday, a further 91,743 Covid cases were reported across the UK – the second highest daily total on record. Sunak highlighted support that was already in place that would last through to next spring, such as a reduced rate of VAT for the tourism and hospitality sectors and a discount on business rates.
Some 30 major West End shows have also had to suspend their runs, many until the new year, in response to the surging virus.
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Although Sunak’s intervention was welcomed, responses to the business support measures from the hospitality sector focused on the low level of funding available for businesses. There were also renewed calls for higher rates of statutory sick pay so people would be less inclined to work while ill.
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