To ask the Minister of Finance, pursuant to AQW 13809/17-22, to detail (i) the number and value of money mistakenly given out to businesses via one of the COVID-19 grant or rates relief schemes; and (ii) the measures in place to recover any money mistakenly given out via the same schemes.

My Department has identified 565 payments under the £10,000 Small Business Support Grant Scheme, with a total value of £5,650,000, which were made where it has later been determined that there were queries about eligibility for a grant under the Scheme.

To date 142 Small Business Support grants have been fully or partially returned. The total value of grants returned to date is £1,407,000.

Land & Property Services (LPS) administered the Small Business Support Grant Scheme on behalf of the Department for the Economy, but has no power of recovery for payments made under the Scheme. LPS has offered to assist DfE with their recovery of these monies.

For the Localised Restrictions Support Scheme, Land & Property Services is not yet in a position to provide this information as investigations and analysis are not yet complete.

With regards to the 12 Month Rates Holiday, this is not a cash payment. It is a relief applied to a rate account which has the effect of reducing the amount of rates owed on the account. Where the relief has been applied in error, it is removed and the balance on the rate account adjusted accordingly. Billing and collection of rates then continues as normal. To date LPS has identified 295 properties that were awarded the relief and subsequently had this removed.