UK wide support for jobs

• The UK Government has extended the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme until the end of April 2021. The government will cover the cost of 80 per cent of the wages of furloughed employees for hours not worked – employers will only be asked to cover NICs and pension contributions.
• We have extended the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme until April 2021. The government is now providing a third SEISS grant, covering 80 per cent of average trading profits between November and January 2021, capped at £7,500 in total. We will also introduce a fourth grant, to cover February to April, in due course.

Support for businesses

• We have extended the deadline and given businesses across the UK until the end of March to access the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, and the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme.
• Businesses have also benefited from tax holidays and deferrals e.g. cutting VAT on hospitality and tourism from 20% to 5% and business rates holidays for eligible businesses across the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors (as well as Nurseries).
• The Future Fund which issues convertible loans worth between £125,000 to £5 million to innovative companies which are facing financing difficulties due to the coronavirus outbreak remain open until the end of January 2021.
• Businesses forced to close can claim grants of up to £3,000 per month (worth over £1 billion per month). Any business in England forced to close due to national or local restrictions can claim grants, via their local authority, of up to £3,000 per month, per business premises, depending on rateable value. Businesses that remain open, but are impacted by local restrictions, can also claim grants worth up to £2,100 a month, whilst wet-led pubs also benefitted from a £1000 one-off extra grant in December 2020.
• In addition, on 5 January, the government announced all businesses in England forced to close can claim a one-off grant of up to £9,000. This is in addition to the monthly closed grant amounts above. The one-off additional grant each business premises will receive depends on their rateable value.
• The Trade Credit Reinsurance Scheme that ensures trade credit insurance coverage and credit limits are maintained during the coronavirus pandemic to help businesses to trade with confidence has been extended to June 2021.

Support through our Plan for Jobs for the unemployed

• Our £2 billion UK wide Kickstart scheme creates paid, quality 6-month work placements for over 200,000 young people deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment. The scheme is available across Great Britain.
• Our Job Entry Targeted Support scheme is providing six months of personalised support for people who have been unable to find work within the first 3 months of unemployment. The scheme is available across Great Britain.
• We are doubling the number of work coaches available to help people across the UK get back into to work.
• The new £2.9 billion UK-wide Restart scheme will go live from Summer 2021 to provide 12 months of tailored support for those out of work for at least 12 months.
• We’re expanding apprenticeships in England and providing employers with a hiring incentive for each new apprentice they hire, with £2,000 available for every apprentice hired aged 16 to 24 and £1,500 for those aged 25 and over.
• We’ve also invested £111 million to expand our traineeships in England, a skills development programme for people of all ages that includes a work placement and gets you ready for an apprenticeship or job.
• The government’s sector-based Work Academy Programme is supporting tens of thousands of jobseekers across the country to upskill, retrain and gain quality work experience through the government’s. The scheme is available in England and Scotland.

For low income families

• For workers on low incomes who can’t work from home and have been asked to self-isolate, we have offered £500 self-isolation payments.
• We have boosted the generosity of the welfare system by £7.4 billion in 2020-21 including through a temporary £20 a week increase in Universal Credit standard allowance and Working Tax Credit basic element, an increase in Local Housing Allowance rates and relaxation of UC minimum income floor for self-employed claimants.
• We also introduced SPP rebate scheme reimbursing employers with <250 employees for up to two weeks of Covid-related SSP per employee and extended SSP to those ill or self-isolating due to Covid-19 or who are clinically vulnerable and unable to work as a result.

For local authorities

• Local authorities in England will be given an additional £500 million discretionary funding to support their local businesses. This builds on the £1.1 billion discretionary funding (worth £20 per head of population) which local authorities in England have already received to support their local economies and help businesses impacted.
• We’re also providing further funding for local authorities to support the ongoing public health and outbreak management costs of tackling coronavirus through the Contain Outbreak Management Fund. Areas at Tier 3 and 4 will receive £4 per head of population per 28 days, and those at Tier 2 will receive £2 per head per 28 days. This funding, potentially worth over £200 million per month, can be used to fund local public health activities and is in addition to the more than £975 million that has been committed to date.
• In addition, local authorities are expected to receive over £3 billion of support next year to assist more than 4 million households least able to pay council tax, compensate for 75 per cent of the irrecoverable loss of council tax and business rates revenue in 2020-21, and other additional expenditure pressures arising from coronavirus. This £3 billion next year builds on the £6.7 billion provided for local authorities this year – taking the total support for local authorities to over £10 billion.
• We had already provided over £7 billion for local authorities, including:
• £4.6 billion to protect vital services
• £1.1 billion to protect social care through the Infection Control Fund
• £100 million to maintain leisure provision
• over £32 million to support those clinically extremely vulnerable during national restrictions in November
• £30 million to support enforcement of Covid-19 regulations
• £500 million to provide council tax reliefs to economically vulnerable people and households through the Hardship Fund.

Support in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

The UK Government has provided support for jobs and businesses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through our UK wide loan and employment support schemes. For example:

As of 15 October we’d provided businesses across the UK with CBILS and BBLs, including:

• Scotland with nearly 80,000 loans worth nearly £3 billion
• Wales over 50,500 loans worth over £1.7 billion
• Northern Ireland nearly 35,000 loans worth over £1.3 billion

We’ve also provided support through the furlough scheme which has protected:

• 779,500 jobs in Scotland
• 400,800 jobs in Wales
• 249,600 jobs in Northern Ireland

We’ve supported incomes of the self-employed across the UK, including:

• 157,000 people in Scotland
• 110,000 people in Wales
• 78,000 people in Northern Ireland

In addition to the above UK wide funding, we’ve also provided the devolved administrations with funding through the Barnett Formula where policy is devolved. It’s up to the devolved administrations to decide how to use this funding.

The UK Government has guaranteed at least £8.6 billion of additional funding for the Scottish Government, £5.2 billion for the Welsh Government, and £3 billion for the Northern Ireland Executive to give the devolved administrations certainty to plan and deliver their coronavirus response. This is on top of their Spring Budget 2020 funding.