The Chancellor announced £4.6bn of new lockdown grants to support businesses and protect jobs during the third national lockdown. This includes one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses and is worth up to £9,000 per individual property of each business.
These one-off grants are available to closed businesses as follows:
- £4,000 up to a rateable value of £15,000 or under
- £6,000 up to a rateable value of £15,000 and £51,000
- £9,000 up to a rateable value of £51,000
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."
There is also a £594m discretionary fund also available to support other businesses impacted by the third lockdown that are not eligible for other grants.
In addition a £1.1bn discretionary grant has been made available to local authorities, the Local Restriction Support Grants are worth up to £3,000 per month. Businesses should apply to their local authority for these grants.
The aim of these schemes is to help businesses survive the next lockdown that is expected to last at least seven weeks.
