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<p>Throughout the pandemic, the government has sought to protect people’s jobs and
livelihoods while also supporting businesses and public services across the UK. To
do this, the government has put in place an economic package of support which will
provide businesses and individuals with certainty over the coming months, even as
measures to prevent further spread of the virus change. The cumulative cost to the
Government of this support since the start of the pandemic is £352 billion.</p><p>
</p><p>This support includes a new Restart Grant of up to £18,000 to over 680,000
business premises, giving them the cash certainty they need to plan ahead and safely
relaunch trading over the coming months. Local authorities will also receive an additional
£425 million of discretionary business grant funding under the Additional Restrictions
Grant (ARG), on top of the £1.6 billion already allocated to allow them to support
their local businesses. This means local authorities will have received over £2.1
billion of discretionary grant funding to support businesses which are not eligible
for Restart Grants, but which are nonetheless experiencing a severe impact on their
business due to public health restrictions.</p><p> </p><p>In order to support businesses
to retain their employees and protect the UK economy, the Chancellor has extended
both the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Self-Employment Income Support
Scheme (SEISS) until September 2021. In Northern Ireland, the CJRS has supported more
than 280,000 jobs since the scheme’s inception, and as of 31 January, the SEISS provided
£570 million of support to self-employed individuals in Northern Ireland. The fourth
and fifth SEISS grants are an estimated £13.5 billion of additional support, taking
total support for the self-employed to over £33 billion. The Government has also announced
a major improvement in access to the self-employed scheme. As the deadline for 2019-20
tax returns has now passed, HMRC will use these tax returns for the fourth and fifth
grants, provided they were submitted by 2 March. This means more than 600,000 people,
many of whom became self-employed in 2019-20, may now be able to claim the fourth
and fifth grants, bringing the total number of people who could be eligible to 3.7
million.</p><p> </p><p>Businesses have also received billions in loans, tax deferrals,
Business Rate reliefs, and general and sector-specific grants. And individuals and
families have benefited from increased welfare payments, enhanced statutory sick pay,
a stay on repossession proceedings and mortgage holidays. But we must recognise that
it will not be possible to preserve every job or business indefinitely, nor stand
in the way of the economy adapting and people finding new jobs or starting new businesses.
As measures to control the virus change, it is right that government support should
also evolve. Because of this, we continue to take a flexible approach and keep all
impacts and policies under review.</p>
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