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Written question asked by Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party) on Thursday, 25 November 2021, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 30 November 2021 (named day). It was answered by Lucy Frazer (Conservative) on Tuesday, 30 November 2021 on behalf of the Treasury.

Self-employment Income Support Scheme

Question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Court of Appeal decision in R. (on the application of Motherhood Plan) v HM Treasury [2021] EWHC 309 (Admin), published on 24 November 2021, if he will review Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grants given to self-employed women who have recently given birth.

Answer

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) did not unlawfully discriminate against self-employed women who had taken time away from work related to pregnancy or caring for a new baby. The Government welcomes this judgment.

Under SEISS, the Government has been able to support millions of self-employed people, at scale and pace, making it one of the most generous self-employment income COVID support schemes in the world. The SEISS grant was based on data HMRC already held and could quickly and easily calculate at scale. Without this mechanism, the schemes might have run into unacceptable delay, created unmanageable manual demand, or risked exposing our support to unacceptably high levels of error and fraud.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
82019
Session
2021-22
Subjects
Court of Appeal Women Judgements Self-employed Childbirth Self-employment income support scheme
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk