Financial support for businesses outlined ‘to bridge resilience to recovery’

Scotland’s Finance Secretary has allocated the final tranche of a funding package designed to tackle the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

Leading a debate on the final stage of the Budget (Scotland) Bill at Holyrood on Thursday, Kate Forbes announced £39.5 million of funding designed to “provide a bridge from resilience to recovery”.

The cash, which will be used to support the events, tourism, childcare and small business sectors, will be paid before the end of the financial year.

Ms Forbes told MSPs: “One of our key objectives in this Budget was economic recovery – and if households are struggling, so too are some businesses.

“As the chamber will be aware, this Government is committed to maximising our Covid recovery support for businesses.

“As part of this I previously announced the allocation of £276 million of Omicron business support funding for the current financial year.

“Following consultation with businesses, who asked for support to now focus on economic recovery, I am pleased to announce today the allocation of further funding to support business sector recovery, including events and travel.

“All of these grants will provide a bridge from resilience to recovery.”

Major events and the culture sector will be given £16 million in funding to counter cancellations incurred by the pandemic.

A further £7.5 million will be given to tour operators, with the aim of driving economic recovery in tourist hotspots across the country, while £3.5 million in funding will be passed to travel agents – which the Finance Secretary said had faced “near-continuous” restrictions due to the pandemic.

Another £3 million will be used for city centre recovery in a bid to improve footfall, and the same amount will be given to small businesses to help them to “digitalise”, the Finance Secretary said.

Some £6.5 million will also be paid to the childcare sector to deliver one-off grants to businesses.

Andrew McRae, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Scotland, called for more help for firms that will be hit by rising energy costs.

“The Scottish Government is right to focus on recovery, and we’re pleased to see new Covid grant support announced for operators that have had little or no help so far,” he said.

“One of the few bright spots over the last two years has been the number of smaller Scottish operators that built their digital skills to survive the pandemic.

“New cash for their popular and successful DigitalBoost programme is a savvy choice that’ll help many firms get ready for the future.

“However, today’s announcements do little to shield the bulk of Scotland’s smallest firms against punishing increases in energy bills.

“Governments in Edinburgh and London can’t leave local and independent firms to fend for themselves in a market that doesn’t care about the sacrifices of the last two years.”