MP welcomes discretionary funding for hospitality
South Shropshire MP, Philip Dunne, has welcomed the £1 billion package of funding to support hospitality and leisure affected by the Omicron variant of Covid.
The government is providing one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises for businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors in England. There will also be more than £100 million discretionary funding made available for local authorities to support other businesses. Around 200,000 businesses will be eligible for business grants which will be administered by local authorities and available in coming weeks.
Mr Dunne said that as increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases means more workers taking time off work, the government is also reintroducing the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme.
"The SSPRS will help small and medium-sized employers – those with fewer than 250 employees – by reimbursing them for the cost of Statutory Sick Pay for Covid-related absences, for up to two weeks per employee. Firms will be eligible for the scheme from today and they will be able to make claims retrospectively from mid-January.
“I am very pleased the Chancellor has recognised the significant impact that Omicron is having already on hospitality and leisure, at what is traditionally their busiest period of the year, as the public understandably exercises caution ahead of Christmas.
"These grants will go some way to easing that burden, and I shall be encouraging Shropshire Council to make available discretionary funding as soon as possible, to help those businesses most at risk.”
