Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the most persistent claims made by Labour is that the Welsh Government’s business support package is the most generous of the UK’s nations.
Call me old-school, but you can only make claims like that that if you’re certain – and we haven’t been given any solid proof (yet).
The closest we’ve come to official evidence to support the claim to date is a written answer to Andrew RT Davies MS (Con, South Wales Central) back in June 2021.
In the answer, it was claimed:
- The link between rateable value (for business rates) and the size of the grant would result in far more generous financial assistance to relevant businesses in Wales compared to England.
- Similar or slightly greater levels of support have been offered to non-essential retailers in Wales compared to England (except for the largest retailers).
- Welsh business rate relief schemes will run for longer than in England.
All of this is fine. The problem is the only comparisons were made with England and none with Scotland or Northern Ireland – so it remains difficult to tell if it’s the most generous package in the UK based on this evidence alone.
Absolute proof is difficult to find because some coronavirus-related schemes are simply a rejigging of business support that existed before the pandemic – like changes to business rates relief or more specific examples like additional funding provided to Transport for Wales.
Arguing over which of the individual UK nations offered the “most generous support” also wrongly – and that’s me saying this – ignores some of the very important support provided at the UK level in non-devolved areas. That includes the furlough/job retention scheme, self-employment grants, changes to insolvency laws, VAT deferral/breaks, business interruption loans and sick pay rebates.
All of that will have had an equal, if not significantly greater, impact on the chances of a business surviving the pandemic than some of the schemes administered by the nations.
