To ask the Minister of Finance what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of compensating small businesses that have maintained the salaries of employees even though they were ineligible for support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Mr Murphy

I have been concerned that the Treasury's eligibility criteria for its schemes have excluded some businesses, and I have raised that directly and repeatedly with Ministers in London. In particular, given the local restrictions that the Executive put in place in October, I called on the Treasury to make furloughing available immediately for all businesses that needed it. I recognise, however, there was a gap for businesses not eligible before the 1 November extension of the scheme, but that sort of wage support can be put in place only by Treasury. First, the scale of the funding required is huge. Ulster University has estimated that the value of furlough claims in the North up to the end of July was £890 million. That is beyond the scope of our budget locally. Secondly, making those sorts of payments requires access to HMRC taxpayer data and systems that we do not have and nor could we get. That said, I will continue to use all the levers at my disposal to support businesses that are impacted, as I did most recently in putting in place the localised restrictions support scheme, paying double the amounts available under the London Government's scheme.

Mr Murphy

Yes. The number of applications is, I think, in the region of 12,000; the number of payments is over 5,000; and I think that in the region of over 2,000 have been rejected. More than half have been processed, and we are heading towards £20 million in payout on that scheme.

Mrs Barton

Minister, what was the outcome of the talks with Department for the Economy's officials over the weekend on the matter? Why has it taken nearly eight months to come up with the appropriate package?

Mr Murphy

The Member will know, because her colleague proposed the restrictions last Thursday, that we were not aware until Thursday that non-essential retail was part of the Department of Health's proposition for restrictions. In order to come up with a package to address those issues, you have to know where the businesses that need support are. Over the weekend, we had, in essence, to come up with a package, and that is what we did. Yesterday, I brought to the Assembly a substantial support package across a range of Departments, including the Department for the Economy, to provide that support. The funding available to us has changed. The furlough scheme has changed at very short notice. We knew just over only two and a half weeks ago that we had an additional £400 million. The restrictions themselves have changed the businesses that are required to close. All that has happened with little notice. As for the notion that we had months to come up with the schemes, I wish that we had had. I wish that we had known what restrictions would be in place and what funding would be available to us. I wish that we had known that the Treasury was going to change its mind abruptly on furloughing with no notice. I look forward to finding out tomorrow what will be in our budgets for next year when the comprehensive spending review is finished. It has not been ideal for planning, but we put together schemes and processes as quickly as we could once we had all the relevant information.

Mr Catney

Thank you, Minister. I realise that we are working to get that money out to businesses. Is there a possibility that the support announced yesterday for company directors could be utilised by small businesses?

Mr Murphy

The Member will know that the scheme to which he refers is being taken forward by the Department for the Economy. The scheme tries to address a section of our business community that has not received any support so far. I have made this point many times: as we are now, perhaps, getting on to the third level of support for some businesses, it is particularly acute for those who have not received any support to date. The Department for the Economy will roll out the scheme. I look forward to seeing the details, and I am sure that, if it can assist some of the businesses to which he refers, it will be of benefit to them.