The Government has announced a series of measures to significantly increase the economic support available to businesses and workers during coronavirus to help cushion the impact of the lockdown. The business support measures that have been made available to the regions businesses and employees include the following:
- Loans, tax relief and cash grants to support SMEs
- Employers can apply for staff to get up to 80% pay if they can’t work
- Self-employed people will receive up to £2,500 per month in grants for at least 3 months
Regional business support specialists are in daily contact with UK Government and other strategic partners to ensure that businesses can quickly get access to the support that is being made available. In addition, Local Enterprise Partnership (LEPs) across the region are working extensively with partners to gather intelligence on how businesses are being impacted so that a clear picture of any gaps in provision in helping SMEs can be highlighted to policymakers and hopefully inform future policy and support going forward.
Nationally, Innovate UK has launched £20M competition looking for business-led innovation and ambitious ideas to the coronavirus outbreak. It is anticipated that Business innovation can play a significant role in developing ways to ease the disruption from Covid-19 by investing in projects up to £50K each that develop innovative ideas to significantly address the needs of society during the critical time.
Prepared by Sarah Barsby, CUE
