COVID-19 Update 19th February 2021
- Wales Reopening
The Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford, has announced that, following the latest review, Wales will remain at Alert Level 4. However, in terms of reopening he announced the following changes:
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- From Saturday 20 February, four people from two different households will be able to meet outdoors for socially distanced local exercise. This doesn’t apply to private gardens.
- From 1 March, the law will be changed to allow licensed wedding venues, such as visitor attractions and hotels, to re-open but only to perform wedding and civil partnership ceremonies.
- Sport Wales will make arrangements for talented athletes to resume training and playing.
- With more people living and working in older people’s care homes being vaccinated, guidance for care home visits will be looked at.
- From Monday 22 February, children aged three to seven will begin returning to schools in a phased way, while some vocational learners, on courses that require practical learning, will return to college.
The next review will take place in three weeks’ time.
https://gov.wales/lockdown-continue-further-three-weeks-pupils-return-school
- Social Impact of Coronavirus
The ONS’s weekly update has been published and, somewhat surprisingly, even though the roll-out of the vaccine has been successful and the Prime Minister is set to announce the reopening Roadmap next week, there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in optimism regarding life getting back to normal. Just 20% of people feel that life will return to normal in six months or less (compared to 21% last week), while 29% of people feel that it will take more than a year for life to return to normal (up from 27% last week).
This indicates that while there is considerable demand for some sectors of the tourism industry such as self-catering, considerable effort will be required to encourage people to return to city destinations and activities such as going to pubs and restaurants or entertainment venues.
- Delay to Business Rates Review
The Government has announced that, due to the coronavirus pandemic and economic uncertainty, the final report on its Business Rates Review will now be released later in the year when there is more clarity on the long-term state of the economy and the public finances. However, an interim report, which will include a summary of consultation responses, will be published on 23 March 2021.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/business-rates-review-update
- GVA By DCMS Cluster
DCMS has published data on the GVA of different industries under their responsibility. These figures show that the GVA from tourism is £74.5bn of the total GVA of £291.9bn generated by businesses across Arts, heritage and Libraries, Design and media, Digital, Gambling, Sport and Civil Society
There are also figures for employment in industries under DCMS’s remit which unfortunately don’t include any figures for tourism. This is extremely disappointing both in terms of the current economic situation and that it would be relatively easy to produce figures for tourism by applying Tourism Satellite Account ratios for tourism-related industries to the Labour Force Survey
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/ad-hoc-statistical-analysis-202021-quarter-4
- Repaying EOTHO
HMRC has update their factsheet for businesses that participated in the Eat Out To Help Out Initiative on how to repay any money that was accidently overclaimed and of their new powers to recover amounts of Eat Out to Help Out payments businesses have overclaimed.
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