The Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces next step in the economic fight against the coronavirus pandemic with new support for the self-employed.
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces next step in the economic fight against the coronavirus pandemic with new support for the self-employed.
He said: “I know that many self-employed people are deeply anxious about the support available for them. You have not been forgotten, we will not leave you behind, we all stand together.”
To support those who work for themselves he announced a new self-employed income support scheme. The Government will pay self-employed people a taxable grant worth 80% of their average monthly profits over the last years, up to £2,500 a month. People will be able to access the scheme no later than the beginning of June and anyone eligible will be contacted directly by HMRC.
To make sure the scheme provides targeted support for those most in need it will be open to anyone with trading profits of up to £50,000.
“To make sure only the genuinely self-employed benefit,” he explained. “It will be available to people who make the majority of their income from self-employment. And to minimise fraud only those who are already in self-employment who have a tax return for 2019 will be able to apply.”
The scheme will be open to people across the UK for at least 3 months and it will be extended if necessary. The self-employed will be able to claim these grants and continue to do business.
He added: “Our scheme is one of the most generous in the world.”
The Chancellor admitted that providing financial support for the self-employed has ‘been difficult to do in practise’ as they are a ‘diverse population with some people earning significant profits’.
He said: “I’ve taken steps to make this scheme deliverable and fair.”
“We know people are worrying about their jobs and their incomes, working closely with businesses and trade unions we have put together a coherent, coordinated and comprehensive economic plan.”
He says the plan is already starting to make a difference with big employers like Brewdog and Pret saying that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will help them ‘protect thousands of jobs’.
This evening the government will publish detailed guidance on how the scheme will operate so other businesses can protect jobs too.
There have been 30,000 enquiries from small businesses for the Coronavirus Business interruption loans of up to £5m, interest free for 12 months, and local authorities are already ‘informing over 700,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses that they will pay no business rates this year’.
He said: “If any business is struggling and worrying they may need to lose staff I would urge you to log on to businesssupport.gov.uk and look very carefully at what support is available before deciding to lay people off.”
“I’m proud of what we have done so far,” he added.
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