Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce the latest Treasury stimulus for small business later this afternoon, as millions of small businesses face shutdown for four months.
Yesterday, prime minister Boris Johnson advised everybody not to venture out of their homes apart from non-essential journeys such as work and food shopping – leaving millions of small businesses in limbo, faced with either having to make staff redundant and yet unable to claim on business insurance because the government, unlike as in Italy and Spain, has not made the coronavirus lockdown official.
The British Beer and Pub Association warned that “thousands of pubs and hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost in the very short term” unless the government bails it out.
Whatever Sunak announces in his Treasury small business stimulus package will build on the £30bn spending package he announced in last Wednesday’s Budget but now seen as insubstantial given the onslaught of the crisis.
What can Rishi Sunak do?
A People’s Quantative Easing Former Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman and government minister Jim O’Neill has called for a “People’s Quantative Easing” – basically, injecting money into people’s bank accounts.
Suspend business rates entirely This would cost the Treasury £31.5bn or