Shadow Minister for Finance and North Wales Mark Isherwood MS has hit out at Flintshire County Council for failing to support self-catering holiday let businesses during the pandemic after the First Minister confirmed to him today that all local authorities in Wales have discretion to pay out grants to such businesses.
Throughout the pandemic Mr Isherwood has been contacted by concerned self-catering business owners worried about how their businesses will survive the pandemic if they are unable to access the Business and Lockdown Non Domestic Rate Grants.
However, Mr Isherwood has had it confirmed by three Welsh Government Ministers and all five other North Wales County Councils that local authorities do have discretion to pay out these grants to self-catering businesses unable to meet the eligibility criteria, but able to prove they are a legitimate business.
He is therefore frustrated that Flintshire alone is denying that they have this discretion, and in the Welsh Parliament this afternoon called on the First Minister to “place on the record” that local authorities are able to use their discretion to support such businesses.
Speaking during the meeting, he said:
“A single North Wales Council continues to insist that legitimate self-catering businesses which do not meet all 3 Welsh Government criteria for the payment of Business and Lockdown Non Domestic Rate Grants to holiday letting businesses are ineligible, leaving several struggling - telling me that their position is based upon a telephone conversation with a Welsh Government Official, although “The Council does not have a formal written record of that conversation, nor was there any subsequent correspondence to confirm the outcome”.
“However, I have received confirmation from three Welsh Government Ministers and all five other North Wales County Councils that local authorities have discretion to pay out these Grants to self-catering businesses unable to meet the three eligibility criteria, but able to prove they are a legitimate business.
“For example, Denbighshire Council confirmed they ‘paid the grants out in these cases and the officers from Welsh Government confirmed our viewpoint was valid and we were correct in awarding the grants to these Businesses’.
“Will you therefore place on record that local authorities have discretion to pay out these Grants to self-catering businesses unable to meet the three eligibility criteria, but able to prove they are a legitimate business, and confirm whether Welsh Government funding is available for retrospective payments accordingly?”
In his response, the First Minister confirmed that the Welsh Government “have provided discretion to local authorities to apply the criteria we set out in the specific circumstances that they face.”
He added: “ Discretion will mean that some local authorities go about that in ways that others do not. That is in the nature of discretion. The Member has accurately set out the Welsh Government's position on that matter.”
Mr Isherwood added:
“It is shocking and disgraceful that Flintshire County Council alone has adopted this position, and that their Chief Executive has spent months rejecting all evidence to the contrary, penalising some of the very businesses they should be supporting at this very difficult time, when equivalent businesses in every other North Wales County have received this essential support from their Local Authorities.
“As Wrexham Council told me, they ‘adopted a position early on in the grant process to use discretion when dealing with grant claims from legitimate self-catering businesses, and applicants were not disqualified if the business did not provide their primary source of income’. Just whose interests are Flintshire’s Executive in Office to support?”