Opinion

Gary McDonald: Little clarity for businesses in these horrendous times

When hairdressers close from Friday, they will be offered financial support. But businesses forced to shut as a result of a loss of trade and customers will get nothing
When hairdressers close from Friday, they will be offered financial support. But businesses forced to shut as a result of a loss of trade and customers will get nothing When hairdressers close from Friday, they will be offered financial support. But businesses forced to shut as a result of a loss of trade and customers will get nothing

IT can't be easy being a law-maker in the midst of this horrendous crisis.

How, for example, do our ministers respond to impossible choices in what already feels like some sort of dystopian science fiction novel? Do they throw us a life-jacket or offer more medicine?

Right now, businesses which have been rebuilding from the first Covid wave and were just getting back on their feet fear that they need both, as this latest Stormont announcement has brought further confusion and angst.

Many firms, of course, have already gone to the wall. And others, with no guaranteed incomes and whose employees are struggling to put food on the table, won't see Christmas. Some mightn't even see the end of this four-week lockdown-lite.

Details will be outlined today of specific financial support packages being offered to businesses like pubs and hotels and hairdressers who've had their means of making an income taken away.

But they're already suggesting it won't be enough, especially if it mirrors that offered to those in the Derry City and Strabane council area, who for every two weeks they are closed will receive between £800 and £1,600 depending on their rateable value.

Drop in the ocean or not, something's better than nothing. But what of those businesses forced to shut not by law, but as a result of a loss of trade, footfall and customers?

Non-essential shopping is being discouraged for now. It's okay to buy bread and milk, but maybe not shoes or a handbag. So the corner shop may survive while the family-owned boutique may be left to wither and die?

Latest Treasury figures show that businesses in Northern Ireland have already benefitted from more than £1.3 billion of government support to protect jobs since the first lockdown in March.

They show that more than 34,000 loans have supported businesses, with retail and construction sectors having received most.

Some 56,000 people in the north have also successfully applied to the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, with an average claim of £2,500.

But that all masks the fact that the jobless count in the last six months has doubled and if predictions are accurate, there could be a further 40,000 plunged into unemployment between now and Christmas.

These restrictions will undoubtedly put more jobs at serious risk as businesses face a myriad of unprecedented challenges (besides leading with dealing with the resurgence of the virus, they continue to manage uncertainty around Brexit).

Businesses always seek clarity as a minimum. Yet even in yesterday's statement from the First Minister, there was no indication of when the new rules would kick in - when pressed from the assembly floor, she revealed it was 6pm Friday.

As for the legislation around hotels, can they actually open this weekend in some very limited capacity?

Well, even the economy minister can't answer that one, for when asked by a delegate at a hotels conference, she said: "I'm urgently engaging with colleagues to clarify the specifics of these new restrictions, and the potential impact on hotels, before they come into effect."

If this is all an Executive minister can come up with, what hope is there for the small business owner understanding the rules?

Who'd be a law-maker....