What support are businesses receiving during the coronavirus pandemic?

When the Chancellor stood up and delivered his Budget on 11 March 2020, announcing the emergency measures for Covid-19, he made it clear that he was prepared to support individuals and businesses further as the situation develops. And that is exactly what he did at the press conference alongside the Prime Minister on Tuesday 17 March.

What the Chancellor’s announcements mean for business

• Government backed and guaranteed loans of £330bn are available to all companies. If the demand exceeds this, the Chancellor stated he is willing to provide as much capacity as necessary
• Additional support for the hospitality, retail and leisure sectors including confirmation that businesses with an insurance policy for pandemics will be able to claim
• Those businesses without an insurance policy for pandemics will be able to access a cash grant of £25,000 per business (for businesses up to a rateable value of £51,000) on top of the already announced business rates reliefs to those firms
• The business rates holiday for smaller firms announced at the Budget will be extended to all businesses in the sector regardless of size for the next 12 months
• Cash grants are being increased from £3,000 to £10,000 for businesses in receipt of Small Business Rates Relief (SBRR) and Rural Rates Relief
• Local authorities will be fully compensated for the reliefs announced
• The devolved administrations will receive £3.5bn through the Barnett formula
• Mortgage lenders will now be offering a three-month holiday to those individuals suffering hardship
• The government announced that the reform to the off-payroll working rules that would have applied for people contracting their services to large or medium-sized organisations (IR35) outside the public sector will be delayed for one year from 6 April 2020 until 6 April 2021.

The Chancellor announced that he is actively working on a package for airlines and airports. The government is also looking at other industry support including regulatory leniency.

Next steps

Please continue to feed in any additional measures that would support your business.

We are in active dialogue with the government and feeding back ideas and anecdotes on a daily basis. Please contact our coronavirus support email address here or get directly in touch with the team here.

You can read a summary of the measures the Chancellors announced at the Budget here.