Business Support

Back in March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was just starting the government announced new emergency measures to help those businesses and self-employed people affected by COVID-19 through the Time To Pay service. A dedicated COVID-19 helpline opened on 11 March 2020 and remains available via webchat and phone. HMRC has made up to 2,000 experienced call handlers available to support businesses concerned about meeting their tax liabilities due to coronavirus.

HMRC says that all businesses and self-employed people in financial distress, and with outstanding tax liabilities, may be eligible to receive support with their tax affairs through HMRC’s Time To Pay service.

These arrangements are agreed on a case-by-case basis and are tailored to individual circumstances and liabilities. Agreements reached with HMRC allow businesses and individuals to pay off their debt by instalments over a period of time.

HMRC will usually only offer taxpayers the option of extra time to pay if they think they genuinely cannot pay in full now but will be able to pay in the future. If HMRC do not think that more time will help a taxpayer then they can require immediate payment and start enforcement action if payment is not forthcoming.

Taxpayers cannot appeal against HMRC’s decision not to grant addition Time To Pay but can make a complaint if they are unhappy about how the way they were treated by HMRC.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently published further detail on its views on the law in relation to cancellations and refunds during the pandemic. It remains their view that a consumer will generally be entitled to a refund when they have paid money in advance for services or goods that cannot be provided because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Given the evolving situation, the CMA has provided more detail on issues such as the difference between lockdown laws and government guidance, and their impact on cancellations and refunds.

For example, if contracts are partially affected by lockdown laws then, depending on the circumstances and the scale of the impact, consumers may be entitled to a refund or a price reduction.

Additionally, the government has issued guidance in place of, or in addition to, lockdown laws. As these are guidance and not law, whether a consumer is entitled to a refund will vary according to the specific circumstances.

For example, if a package holiday is cancelled in light of Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice against travel to the relevant country, there are specific protections which mean that consumers should be entitled to a full refund.

In other situations, it will not always be the case that a full refund is due because government guidance does not create legal restrictions and will not necessarily mean that a contract cannot be performed.

The CMA has also written to certain package travel companies involved in group trips to explain its view on when customers should be offered a refund.

This follows complaints about some package travel organisers advising customers that they are not entitled to a refund as their contract was between the company and a group, such as a school, rather than made directly with the customer. It is the CMA’s view that the Package Travel Regulations apply to these group travel packages, and that individual customers should be entitled to a refund if they have paid money in advance for a group trip that is cancelled because of the pandemic.

The CMA’s statement on consumer protection law, setting out its views, is designed to help consumers understand their rights and to help businesses treat their customers fairly. Ultimately only a court can decide how the law applies in each circumstance.

A statutory instrument will be issued September 2020 that will legitimise the witnessing of wills by video conferencing methods. This extension to the witness process will apply from 31 January 2020 for two years.

The new law will amend the Wills Act 1837 to stipulate that where wills must be signed in the ‘presence’ of at least two witnesses, their presence can be either physical or virtual.

An increasing number of people have sought to make wills during the COVID-19 pandemic, but for people shielding or self-isolating it is extremely challenging to follow the normal legalities of making a will – namely it being witnessed by two people.

To reflect this, the will-maker could use the following example phrase:

‘I first name, surname, wish to make a will of my own free will and sign it here before these witnesses, who are witnessing me doing this remotely’.

Witnessing pre-recorded videos will not be permissible – the witnesses must see the will being signed in real-time. The person making the will must be acting with capacity and in the absence of undue influence. If possible, the whole video-signing and witnessing process should be recorded and the recording retained. This may assist a court in the event of a will being challenged – both in terms of whether the will was made in a legally valid way, but also to try and detect any indications of undue influence, fraud or lack of capacity.

An ongoing issue for motorists is the need to have two tyres on the pavement to avoid unduly restricting road space for wider vehicles and emergency services in narrow streets.

Unfortunately, this can have knock on effects for parents with buggies or disabled vehicles that need to use these pavement areas.

To address these issues the Government has launched a consultation. In their recent press release on this issue the Department for Transport said:

Pavements could be made safer for people with disabilities, and families, under new proposals to ban antisocial parking unveiled by the government today (31 August 2020).

Parking on pavements disproportionately affects people with visual or mobility impairments, those assisted by guide dogs, and wheelchair and mobility scooter users. More than 95% of wheelchair users and people with visual impairments say they had problems with vehicles parked on pavements.

Three options are proposed in the consultation launched today – improving the traffic regulation order process to make it easier for councils to prohibit pavement parking in their areas, giving councils powers to fine drivers who park on paths, and a London-style nationwide ban on pavement parking.

However, there is still a major role for cars and other private vehicles, so any future plans will need to take this into consideration.

A reminder, if one was needed, is that we seem to be heading for a no-deal Brexit from 1 January 2021. One of the issues we will all have to confront is the raft of regulation that we will need to observe from this date if travelling to the EU and certain affiliated territories.

The latest advice on the GOV.UK website says:

Travel to the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein will change from 1 January 2021. Things you may need to do before you go include:

• checking your passport has enough validity on it
• get travel insurance that covers your healthcare
• checking you have the right driving documents
• organising pet travel – contact your vet at least 4 months before you go

There are more things to do if you are travelling for business. For example, going to meetings and conferences, providing services (even with a charity), and touring art or music. Additionally, on the day you travel, you will need your passport to both:

• have at least 6 months left
• be less than 10 years old (even if it has 6 months or more left)

If you do not renew your passport, you may not be able to travel.

It is particularly important you get travel insurance with the right cover if you have a pre-existing medical condition. 

The driving test online booking service reopened on Friday 21 August and then crashed due to the unexpected demand for places. By 8pm that evening the site had been visited seven million times.

In a recent announcement the Drivers and Vehicles Standards Agency (DVSA) said:

Coronavirus has severely impacted our business as usual operations, including by stopping driving tests in March. Since then DVSA have only been dealing with applications for emergency driving tests for critical workers.

Following unprecedented demand for the driving test booking system with almost 7 million attempts to book a test when it opened, we need to carry out urgent maintenance so people can book tests.
We have to close the booking service.

Accordingly, until 8am on Wednesday 26 August 2020, the booking site will remain off-line. This essential maintenance should enable DVSA to cope with the increased demand from the public.

The services that will be unavailable during this period are:

• booking your driving test
• changing your driving test appointment
• checking your driving test appointment details
• cancelling your driving test

It is also worth underlining that the DVSA is only taking bookings for a six week period. On which basis it is unlikely that demand will reduce. Let’s hope that DVSA improvements in their online systems are effective.

The Eat Out to Help Out scheme to encourage the struggling restaurant sector was announced as part of the Chancellor’s Summer Economic announcements. The scheme was designed to help restaurants recover from the effects of the lockdown and has been a great success. 

The scheme was launched on 3 August 2020 and was available every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The last day you can benefit from the scheme is 31 August 2020. In the first two weeks of the scheme over 35 million meals were enjoyed across the country with over 85,000 restaurants taking part. 

Meals that were eaten in at any participating restaurant on the designated days were discounted by 50% up to a maximum discount of £10 per head including children. The discount also applied to non-alcoholic drinks but could not be claimed on alcoholic drinks or service charges. 

One restaurateur commented that:

'The response to Eat Out to Help Out has been phenomenal. Even though venues are operating at reduced capacity and with smaller teams following more thorough safety measures, we’re still managing to serve a similar number of customers on Mondays – Wednesdays that we were this time last year. That makes a huge difference to independents like us.'

The scheme aimed to help protect the jobs of the hospitality industry’s 1.8 million employees by encouraging people to safely return to their local restaurants, cafes and pubs where social-distancing rules allow. Around 80% of hospitality firms stopped trading in April, with 1.4 million workers furloughed, the highest of any sector.

It will be interesting to see if any further measures are announced to help this sector once the scheme closes. 

At the end of July, the government announced £20m of new grant funding was to be allocated to Growth Hubs, specifically to help smaller businesses that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to access much needed professional support.

These grants will provide businesses between £1,000 and £5,000 to help them access or adapt new technology and other equipment as well as to pay for professional, legal, financial or other advice to help them get back on track. The grants could be used, for example, to cover certain support services provided by accountants.  

The exact amount of the grants will be decided at a local level but are expected to typically be up to £3,000. Under certain circumstances the maximum grant of £5,000 may be awarded. 

The support will be delivered from the England European Regional Development Fund. The funding has been allocated to Growth Hubs within each Local Enterprise Partnership and the scheme is expected to open shortly. It should be noted that this funding is extremely limited and available on a first come, first served basis. There will be no obligation for businesses to contribute financially as the grant will be fully funded by the government. 

To establish a viable grant programme, the government has set a minimum of £250,000 for all Local Enterprise Partnership areas. The allocation of resources will be reviewed as the grant funding is delivered. The funding is being provided to address immediate needs and all grants must be awarded by 28 February 2021 and all activity fully completed by 31 March 2021.

The Home Office has announced tougher measures targeting the most serious breaches of social distancing restrictions.

In most cases they will come into effect on Friday 28 August 2020 ahead of the bank holiday weekend.

In their announcement issued 23 August, the Home Office said:

Those facilitating or organising illegal raves, unlicensed music events, or any other unlawful gathering of 30 people or more may face a £10,000 fine – placing a new deterrent on the breaches that put the public most at risk.

Fines of £100 can continue to be issued to those who participate in illegal gatherings and those who have already received a fine will see the amount of doubled on each offence, up to a maximum of £3,200.

But the measures extend beyond large gatherings. There are also to be increases in fines for not wearing face masks when mandated to do so.

Also, on the 28 August, fines for not wearing face coverings where it is mandated will also double for repeat offences, starting at £100 and doubling to a maximum of £3,200 for each repeat offence, mirroring fixed penalty notices for breaches for other restrictions.

It is mandatory to wear a face covering on public transport, and in many enclosed public spaces including shops, supermarkets and high street outlets unless you are exempt, including on the grounds of age, health or disability.