The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) has urged the Government to liaise with business groups, as new support for self-employed individuals “misses the mark”. The news comes as Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £4.6 billion package offering one-off grants up to £9,000 to businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors earlier this week.

Afford Bond Director, Paul Edwards said: “There is no doubt that the self-employed have suffered, sometimes falling through every loop hole for the business grants which have been available so far.

“The  Government needs to “plug the gaps in self-employed support” and reduce the impact of January’s COVID-19 lockdown measures as the new restrictions will have a severe impact on the already struggling self-employed industry.”

Paul Edwards said: “We are aware that for many of our self-employed clients, the new support package, aimed at businesses with premises, misses the mark and will do little to mitigate the financial damage to the self-employed sector.  Almost twelve months down the line and there are still drastic gaps in the support available to the self-employed, with over 1.5 million sole directors, newly self-employed people and others still excluded. We will help lobby to try to address this and we urge the Government to work with business groups to plug these gaps and get support to freelancers in need over the coming months.”

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