Recommendation 13

HM Government Acknowledged

On your recommendation regarding the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), you noted that the Government had made the right decision to extend this support to April 2021. The Government recognises that it will take longer for demand to return for some parts of the economy, and that is why we have extended CJRS and SEISS even further, until September. The CJRS has helped to pay the wages of people in 11.4 million jobs across the country, with more than £53 billion paid out in grants across the UK, protecting jobs that might otherwise have been lost. Meanwhile, the SEISS extension provides certainty to business as the economy reopens and means the SEISS continues to be one of the most generous schemes for the self- employed in the world; 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 since the start of the pandemic. Under the CJRS and SEISS extensions, more people will be able to access support. The Government has moved the cut-off date on which employees need to be with their employer to be eligible for the CJRS. For claims starting on 1 May 2021, the cut-off date has been moved from 30 October 2020 to 2 March 2021. This means that those employed on 2 March 2021 are now eligible for CJRS if the other eligibility criteria are met. Based on early estimates, this means around 2.4 million more employees are potentially eligible for CJRS. 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 SEISS 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. At the Budget the Government also announced an additional £65 billion of further measures. This includes a new Restart Grant of up to £18,000 to over 680,000 business premises, giving small business owners the cash certainty they need to plan ahead and relaunch trading safely and effectively over the coming months. The Government is also providing English local authorities with an additional £425 million of discretionary business grant funding on top of the £1.6 billion already allocated. This comes in addition to the extension of the previous VAT reductions and business rates reliefs for sectors heavily impacted by the pandemic, and of the temporary £20 per week increase to the UC Standard allowance for a further 6 months. The Government announced a £500 one-off payment to provide support to eligible Working Tax Credit claimants. Finally, the Government is doubling payments for apprentices to £3,000 for all new hires and providing £126 million to triple the number of traineeships next year. This builds on an existing package which included £68 billion in affordable finance to firms through business loan schemes, a temporary £7 billion increase to welfare, mortgage holidays and help with council tax payments. This is all part of a comprehensive Plan for Jobs, protecting, creating and supporting employment in every region and nation of the UK. As the public health situation has developed, the Government has ensured that businesses and people have certainty by extending income and business support schemes.