Coronavirus: What help will self-employed get from government?

Employees kept on by struggling businesses during the coronavirus outbreak will have 80% of their wages subsidised by the government, but ministers were criticised for not going so far for the self-employed.

Now Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced measures to support them too.

How many people are affected?

There are more than five million self-employed people in the UK, earning an average of £781 a month. The number has risen fast since the financial crash of a decade ago.

Roughly a fifth are in the construction sector, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with hundreds of thousands of others working in the motor trade, professional services, and education.

What help is there?

If you have suffered a loss in income, a taxable grant will be paid to the self-employed or partnerships, worth 80% of your profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month.

Initially, this will be available for three months in one lump-sum payment, and will start to be paid from the beginning of June.

It will be called the Coronavirus Self-employment Income Support Scheme, and is open to those who were trading in the last financial year, still trading now, and planning to continue doing so this year.

More than half of your income needs to come from self-employment.

The scheme will be open to those with a trading profit of less than £50,000 in 2018-19, or an average trading profit of less than £50,000 from 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2017-18.

This help comes on top of a six-month delay for tax payments through the self-assessment system.

Those with the lowest incomes are in line to receive more generous and quicker paid benefits payments, announced previously.

How do I claim the help?

The chancellor said this will cover 95% of the self-employed who make most of their money from self-employment. This is how it works:

• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will use existing information to identify those eligible and will invite applications
• The application will require them to confirm that they meet the eligibility requirements
• It will be paid straight into a bank account, which eligible taxpayers will need to confirm on their application form
• People do not need to contact HMRC now, if they are eligible HMRC will contact them directly

But the chancellor suggested tax breaks for the self-employed may end in the future.

How does this compare with salaried workers?

Unlike employees, there is no sick pay for the self-employed, although there are tax breaks that come with being self-employed, such as lower national insurance.

A plan had already been announced for those who are employed.

The government says 80% of gross wages in the private sector, up to £2,500 a month, for those not working and who would otherwise have been laid off will be covered by these grants from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

These will be backdated to March and the scheme will last three months at least. The idea is to prevent mass unemployment.