Why The Government Needs To Do More To Help Small Businesses

 I don’t think there are many people who haven’t been affected by the pandemic.  Thousands of people have lost their lives and their loved ones, and thousands of people have lost their jobs.

 

But what about the affect it’s had on small businesses?  It’s all well and good Mr Johnson and his sidekicks in London promising the earth, but do they actually deliver?

 

Well, from where I’m standing, they do not.

 

They tell us we can’t open, but if we can’t open then we can’t earn, and the frightening reality for a lot of people nowadays, is that if we can’t earn then we can’t eat.

 

They promised help for small businesses in the forms of grants and loans.  Well, lets examine their loan scheme they brought out last year - the Bounce Back loan scheme, and the Business Interruption Loan scheme.

 

Well, for a start the Business Interruption Loan scheme could be kicked out straight away if you were a small business as you were only eligible for that if your business had a great big whacking turnover of around £200,000 to even apply.  Not what I’d call a small business.

 

So, lets move on to the Bounce Back Loan scheme.  Yes, on the surface it looks better - it would pay out a loan up to 25% of your turnover with nothing to pay for one year.  Great.  Fast forward one year and things are only just beginning to get back to normal after three lockdowns.  So, just how is a business supposed to afford to begin to pay back this loan when they’ve not been open for the best part of a year, and have still been paying out a percentage of their worker’s wages despite the furlough scheme?

 

So, what help is available now?  Well, there was a recovery loan scheme, but even that is closed now.  So, basically, the government has left small business high and dry.  This doesn’t really surprise me since it’s a government that employs a health secretary who couldn’t even follow his own rules!

 

Not only that, but if you were a small business who had only just started trading and so had no previous accounting proof then you were pretty much screwed from the start.

 

Come on, Mr Johnson, pull your finger out - if you want to get the country trading again then you’re going to have to help people.

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