"GENEROUS" support has been announced for hospitality businesses across all tiers of restrictions by Chancellor Rishi Sunak - with grants which can be backdated to August.

Rishi Sunak told MPs that “it is clear that even businesses who can stay open are facing profound economic uncertainty”.

Informing the Commons that he had spoken to hospitality representatives on Thursday morning, the Chancellor said: “Their message was clear – the impact of the health restrictions on their businesses is worse than they hoped.”

Mr Sunak added: “So I am taking three further steps today.”

Rishi Sunak announced that businesses in Tier 2 areas will receive further financial support.

He told MPs: “First, I am introducing a new grant scheme for businesses impacted by Tier 2 restrictions, even if they aren’t legally closed.

“We will fund local authorities to provide businesses in their area with direct cash grants.

“It will be up to local authorities to decide how best to distribute these grants, giving them the necessary flexibility to respond to local economic circumstances.

“But I am providing enough funding to give every businesses premises in the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sectors a direct grant worth up to £2,100 for every month Tier 2 restrictions apply.

“That is equivalent to 70% of the value of the grants available for closed businesses in Tier 3.”

“Crucially, I am pleased to confirm these grants will be retrospective. Businesses in any area which has been under enhanced restrictions can backdate their grants to August.

“I am pleased to confirm that the backdating of the new grants means we are being more generous to businesses and places which have been under higher restrictions for longer.”

He added: “To protect jobs, we are making the Jobs Support Scheme more generous for employers. If businesses are legally required to close as we’ve already outlined the Government will cover the full cost of employers paying two-thirds of people’s salary where they can’t work for a week or more.

“For businesses who can open it is now clear the impact of restrictions on them particularly in the hospitality sector is more significant than they had hoped.

“So, I am making two changes to the short-time work scheme to make it easier for those businesses to keep staff on rather than make them redundant.

“First, under the original scheme employees had to work for 33% of their normal hours. Now we will ask them to work only 20% of those hours.

“Second, the employer contribution for the hours not worked will not be 33% as originally planned, or even 20% as it is in the October furlough scheme, it will reduce to 5% and the scheme will apply to eligible businesses in all alert levels.”

He added: “I’m increasing our contribution to the incomes of the self-employed as well. Today we are doubling the next round of the self-employed income support from 20% to 40% of people’s incomes, increasing the maximum grant to £3,750.”

He concluded: “This is our plan. A plan for jobs, for businesses, for the regions, for the economy, for the country. A plan to support the British people.”