On Wednesday 18 March Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture in the Scottish Government, announced a financial support package for businesses in Scotland worth £2.2Bn. Following the UK Chancellor’s announcement on Tuesday pledging a £330Bn package, the Scottish Government’s additional funding provides much needed financial assistance to struggling businesses.
The financial support package includes “a full year’s 100% non-domestic rates relief for retail, hospitality and tourism”. This is is good news for businesses in these sectors. Leisure has been included in the list, which includes music venues.
Also offered, as part of the UK Government’s package, are “£25,000 grants for hospitality, leisure and retail properties with a rateable value between £18,000 and £51,000”. Again that is very good news but we need to understand the detail properly.
The gravity of our situation cannot be overstated currently. Announcing the Scottish Government’s package, Hyslop said:
This will have severe economic consequences and we are treating it as an economic emergency, triggered by the enormity of the health emergency.
I welcome the further support announced by the Chancellor and the Scottish Government will pass all consequentials to businesses to help them through this challenging period.
Read the whole statement and find out more on the Scottish Government website.
Will these measures help you? Take our survey and let us know how the crisis is affecting your business. The more information we have, the more useful we can be when representing music businesses in Scotland to Government and industry.
Dougal Perman is Executive Chair of the Scottish Music Industry Association