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Boris Johnson last night announced the move to a series of new rules, with guidance to work from home and the use of domestic Covid passports for entry to venues, in response to Omicron.
Rishi Sunak unveiled a raft of measures aimed at helping small businesses today. The Chancellor targeted high street firms with a business rate holiday extension until June, followed by a two-thirds reduced rate for the rest of the financial year. He also confirmed a freeze of VAT at 5 per cent for hospitality firms until June, and to stagger a return to the 20 per cent regular rate with an interim 12.5 per cent step until April 2022. Business leaders had called for another year at the 5 per cent rate. He also unveiled an extension of the furlough scheme until September - albeit with increasi...
Exclusive: Small business owners on what is happening in the real economy (Getty Images) The City was hit with some sobering figures earlier this month, as official data showed UK GDP shrank by a staggering 9.9 per cent in 2020, the largest drop on record. The figures were less bad than expected, which led PwC to conclude that British businesses are becoming more adaptable to lockdowns from an economic perspective. Is this the case? City A.M. spoke to a number of small business owners to provide an insight into what’s happening in the real economy. “The pandemic has bee...