Treasury introduces £4.6bn in new lockdown grants

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The Treasury has launched £4.6bn of funding to help retailers through the new national lockdown.

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The move follows the prime minister’s announcement last night of a third national lockdown, which will see non-essential retail close until at least February half-term in order to help control the pandemic.

Businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors are to receive a one-off grant worth up to £9,000. The funding will be provided on a per-property basis to support businesses through the latest restrictions and is expected to benefit more than 600,000 business properties, worth £4bn in total across all nations of the UK.

Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said: “The new strain of the virus presents us all with a huge challenge – and whilst the vaccine is being rolled out, we have needed to tighten restrictions further.

“Throughout the pandemic we’ve taken swift action to protect lives and livelihoods and today we’re announcing a further cash injection to support businesses and jobs until the Spring.

“This will help businesses to get through the months ahead – and crucially it will help sustain jobs, so workers can be ready to return when they are able to reopen.”

An additional £594m is also being made available for local authorities and the devolved administrations to support other businesses not eligible for the grants, that might be affected by the restrictions.

Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, said: “The first quarter of the year is always the toughest for retailing, even without Covid, and the extra sales in November in December provide the valuable cash flow to see through winter.

“As non-essential have missed out on the festive period, they need extra cash to see them through, and quickly as the bills will start to mount up. Many shops will have excess, unwanted Christmas stock that they have to pay for. The government has shown certainty with regards the furlough scheme, in order to protect jobs.

“In reality, if independent retailers do not receive more financial support in the next few weeks, there will be no jobs to return to.”

Retail NI has also welcomed the news. Chief executive, Glyn Roberts, said: “This is a welcome move by the chancellor, and we hope that our Executive will work night and day to get these grants paid out to independent retailers and other high streets businesses.

“Retail NI also wants the Executive to include essential independent food retailers, who have lost trade and footfall, in this grant scheme. With footfall reduced by 78%, many of these businesses are struggling to trade in town and city centres which are virtual ghost towns, with most of their neighbouring businesses closed. With offices, non-essential retail and hospitality closed, custom for these businesses has decreased dramatically and will mean they have no choice but to close, further adding to the challenges of the high street.”

Roberts added: “With the lockdown now being tightened we need the Executive to bring forward a comprehensive business support package, including further rates relief for the whole of 2021. If the Executive does not take immediate action, then we are facing the loss of businesses and jobs which will be off the scale.”

The chancellor also revealed that the Scottish government will receive £375m in Barnett consequential revenues as part of the support package for retailers and hospitality businesses affected by the latest lockdown.

Scottish Retail Consortium director, David Lonsdale, said: “It’s vital a fair portion of these newly devolved funds are swiftly used to prop up so-called non-essential retailers here in Scotland whose businesses are balanced on a knife-edge whilst prevented from opening. Shuttered Scottish shops will miss out on about £675m in revenue during the current lockdown until the end of January – putting previously profitable businesses on the edge.

“In England these funds will be directed at retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses forced to close down. Whilst the mechanisms of support may well be different here – and the Scottish Government has already laid out some support – it’s fair and appropriate these new funds are used to support the same types of firms in Scotland. We therefore hope the finance secretary will provide early clarity on how this latest windfall will be used to keep retail and other consumer-facing firms viable during the current forced hibernation.”