Thousands of businesses including restaurants and hotels have had their livelihoods curtailed by Covid-19 restrictions that have forced them to close early or seen customers cancel bookings.

More and more areas are heading into Tier 2 as Covid cases rise.

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a series of new measures to help those businesses that are still open but have been adversely affected by local restrictions nonetheless.

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Support available falls into these three areas:

Job Support Scheme (JSS)

When it was originally announced, the Job Support Scheme – which will come into effect on 1 November – saw employers paying a third of their employees’ wages for hours not worked, and required employers to be working 33% of their normal hours.

Now, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak has made changes to the schem e - called Job Support Scheme - Open which reduces the employer contribution to those unworked hours to just 5%, and reduces the minimum hours requirements to 20%, so those working just one day a week will be eligible. That means that if someone was being paid £587 for their unworked hours, the government would be contributing £543 and their employer only £44.

Employers will continue to receive the £1,000 Job Retention Bonus.

The Job Support Scheme - Closed, for businesses legally required to close, remains unchanged.

Self-employed grant

The amount of profits covered by the two forthcoming self-employed grants increases from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, meaning the maximum grant will increase from £1,875 to £3,750.

This is a potential further £3.1 billion of support to the self-employed through November to January alone, with a further grant to follow covering February to April.

Full details are on the HMRC website

Business Grants

The Chancellor has also announced approved additional funding to support cash grants of up to £2,100 per month primarily for businesses in the hospitality, accommodation and leisure sector who may be adversely impacted by the restrictions in high-alert level areas.

The funding will allow Local Authorities (LAs) to support businesses in high-alert level areas which are not legally closed and will be based on the number of hospitality, hotel, B&B, and leisure businesses in each Local Authority area.

  • LAs will receive a funding amount that will be the equivalent of:
  • For properties with a rateable value of £15,000 or under, grants of £934 per month.
  • For properties with a rateable value of between £15,000-£51,000, grants of £1,400 per month.
  • For properties with a rateable value of £51,000, grants of £2,100 per month.

These grants could benefit around 150,000 businesses in England, including hotels, restaurants, B&Bs and many more who aren’t legally required to close but have been adversely affected by local restrictions nonetheless.

The details are set out in a factsheet on the gov.uk website.