AQW 19302/17-22

Mr Andrew Muir
Alliance Party
North Down

Tabled Date: 21/05/2021
Answered On Date: 28/05/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Finance why eligibility for the Manufacturing (Industrial Derating) Support Grant was changed to exclude those who had received the Retail, Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Grant subsequent to the opening of scheme applications on 10 May 2021.

Answer:

The criteria for the Manufacturing (Industrial Derating) Support Grant have not changed. The scheme was agreed by the Executive to provide assistance for industrial businesses in premises with a total Net Annual Value between £15001 and £51000 which were unable to access grant funding during 2020. I made this explicit in my statement to the Assembly on 15 March.

When the guidance for the Manufacturing (Industrial Derating) Support Grant was being written, it was not anticipated that a business operating from premises that benefit from industrial de-rating would have qualified for the £25,000 Retail Hospitality Tourism and Leisure Grant last year, given the nature of the businesses that were supported by that scheme. It was only when the list of payees for the grant was being prepared that my Department became aware of the overlap between the two schemes and the guidance was then updated accordingly. This was a case where it became necessary for the department to clarify the rules of the scheme in the light of the experience of implementing the scheme. However, the eligibility criteria or principles of the scheme did not change, which are to support a class of business that had been excluded from the previous support schemes.