Coronavirus - what help is available?
Pubs and bars, along with other hospitality and retail businesses, are now facing probably the toughest challenge ever faced as an industry. With government advice to avoid pubs and bars, trade at many venues has already dropped significantly and no one knows how long this will last or what further measures will be announced.
Faced with this scenario it is essential that pubs and bars have support available and know where to go for it, but it is not always easy to keep up to date with the rapidly changing measures. This article is intended to provide a simple summary of the help that is available for pubs and bars to the best of our knowledge.
We can't guarantee this will be fully up to date at time of reading, but we will endeavour to update as more detail is available and further support measures are announced.
Business rates
The chancellor has announced that there will be no business rates payable next year for any retail, hospitality and leisure businesses.
Grants
Pubs and bars with a rateable value of between £15,000 and £51,000 will receive a £25,000 grant.
Those with a rateable value of less than £15,000 will receive a £10,000 grant.
Grants are becoming available now via your local authority.
Insurance
Unfortunately most insurance policies only provide cover for a specified list of notifiable diseases. This means that although COVID-19 has now been listed as a notifiable disease, many insurance policies taken out prior to this won’t provide cover. We have heard from some customers whose policies do provide cover though, so we suggest you check the wording of your own policy carefully.
If your policy does cover you for pandemics from notifiable diseases (not only specifically named ones) then the government has agreed with insurers that you can already claim for government-ordered closure, due to the advice the government have given for people to avoid pubs and bars.
Loans
A new Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme will be launched next week to support businesses in accessing loans and overdrafts. These loans will not incur any interest for the first 6 months. Further details on who will be providing access to these loans is due in the next few days. We will update this article as and when more information is available.
Staff wages
HMRC will reimburse 80% of employees wage cost (up to a cap of £2500 per month) where the employee is unable to work and would otherwise have been laid off.
There will be a new online portal to submit information about employees to be "furloughed" as part of the scheme and new systems put in place to facilitate the reimbursements.
Ongoing developments & further advice
The support announced so far shows that the government has an appreciation of the impact the current situation is having on the sector, but more help is still needed. We will be monitoring closely as further measures are announced and will update this article with any new information.
At times like these we need to stick together and if you would like to discuss or ask questions about any of the help covered in this article, please get in touch and we will help as much as we can.
