Chancellor reveals £4.6bn lockdown fund with £9,000 grants and furlough extension

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a new £4.6bn lockdown fund to help businesses through the third English lockdown.

The new package which includes one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses worth £9,000 per property, also includes an extension to the furlough scheme.

A £594m discretionary fund, with further grants for local authorities worth up to £3,000 a month for firms is also available.

This follows the Prime Minister’s announcement that these businesses will be closed until at least February half-term in order to help control the virus, and, together with the wide range of existing support, provides them with certainty through the Spring period.

The cash is provided on a per-property basis to support businesses through the latest restrictions, and is expected to benefit over 600,000 business properties, worth £4 billion in total across all nations of the UK.

Further information

• the one-off top-ups will be granted to closed businesses as follows:
• £4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under
• £6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
• £9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over £51,000
• business support is a devolved policy and therefore the responsibility of the devolved administrations, which will receive additional funding as a result of these announcements in the usual manner:
• this is on top of the increased funding which has already been guaranteed by the UK Government, to continue to provide the devolved administrations the certainty they need to plan for their COVID-19 response in the months ahead
• small businesses in the devolved administrations should also be able to benefit from other UK-wide measures in the government’s unprecedented package of support for business, including the various business lending schemes (where the repayment terms were made easier as part of the Winter Economy Plan), and the extension of the Self Employment Income Support Scheme

We will communicate the link to apply for the funds as soon as it is made live on the Derby City Council website.