AQW 13182/17-22

Mr Stewart Dickson
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 22/01/2021
Answered On Date: 01/03/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for the Economy, in regards to the Large Tourism and Hospitality Business Support Scheme, to detail how support levels were determined for each band, including what fixed costs were considered, and the estimates for these.

Answer:

The Large Tourism and Hospitality Business Support Scheme was developed to provide a “top-up” grant payment to large tourism and hospitality businesses in receipt of the Localised Restrictions Support Scheme. The Scheme was developed in recognition of the very significant and unavoidable fixed costs incurred by these sectors during periods when trading has been restricted due to COVID-19 Health Regulations. The support levels for each Net Annual Value (NAV) band were determined using NAV as a proxy for fixed costs. NAV is defined as the rent at which the property might reasonably be expected to let on a year to year basis on the assumption that the tenant is responsible for repairs and insurance and any other expenses necessary to maintain the property in a state to command the rent.

Whilst NAV is not strictly a proxy for all fixed costs, it is a proxy for rental/mortgage costs. However, it is not unrealistic to assume that these represent a significant proportion of total fixed costs. As other property based expenses, such as insurance, maintenance etc can be assumed to be correlated with rental costs, the relative NAV of one property to another provides a good proxy for the relative fixed costs of one business to another.

Within the budget available, payments bands were calculated using NAV as a proxy for fixed costs whilst taking into account that the eligible businesses were also eligible for £1,600 per week from the Localised Restrictions Support Scheme.