Rishi serves up £1bn business fund

Rishi Sunak has announced a £1 billion support package today (21 December), to help businesses impacted by the Omicron variant.

Businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors in England will be eligible for one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises. 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.

A further £100 million will be made available to support other businesses in need. Local Authorities will have discretion to allocate this to businesses in their area.

The government is also reintroducing the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme, to help small and medium-sized employers (fewer than 250 employees), by covering the cost of Statutory Sick Pay for Covid-related absences, for up to 2 weeks per employee. Firms will be eligible for the scheme from today and they will be able to make claims retrospectively from mid-January.

To provide continued support to the cultural sector, £30 million further funding will be made available through the Culture Recovery Fund to support organisations such as theatres, orchestras and museums through the winter to March 2022.

You can read more detail HERE.