Parents have been home schooling their children for almost a year. They have had to do this in addition to their jobs.

After losing their jobs in the first lockdown thousands of people have only managed to get employment in October to December. If their employers did not register them on the Government's payroll scheme by the 30th October they were not entitled to be furloughed in either of the last two lockdowns. This is causing massive financil hardship. The scheme date needs changing to preferably the 30th November or at least the 31st December 2020

Covid has had a huge negative impact on the world which goes without saying, I understand that businesses are affected.. But so is the general public, it is an absolute outrage that there will be a freeze on the living wage while everything continues to rise, A lot of people can't even go to work, yet we are all having to pull together to keep the country 'ticking over' where does the government get off when hiking up prices and not giving an ounce of a payrise on the living wage? It's completely bonkers and unbalanced.

Many will lose their livelihood and many will soufflé mental illness and may even nit reach retirement age due to all of the well documented issues following the lockdown of economy etc

Small businesses like shops and restaurants are the backbone of the UK economy. They pay all their taxes (unlike multinationals like Amazon) and employ millions. Yet again if they are considered "non essential" they are forced to close even though they have spent £1000s to make themselves covid secure and there is no evidence that they bear any responsibility for any rate rise. In the 1st lockdown they got £10000 to last 3 months and in the 2and only £1300 for 4 weeks. This 2nd grant is just inadequate to cover their expenses and many will go under forever. The UK government needs to act NOW and pay these businesses grants proportionate to lockdown 1 to keep them going.

During the pandemic we have seen how the financial playing field has shifted. TSB are acting like profiteering opportunists on the back of what is a truly for critical time for the public and they have done so by raising the monthly fees for overdraft accounts. As a customer of TSB, a £1400 overdraft one is now expected to pay £40pcm with none of the charge going toward reducing the debt. Secondly they still owe the public all the tax money that was used to bail them out. This petition is an opportunity for TSB to act with some respect for the conditions we are facing today.

This money can be used for more crucial aspect of businesses especially in desperate times with no incoming funds.

The UK Chancellor announced in March that all retail businesses would be given a business rates holiday for 12 months in order to help businesses who were in trouble because of COVID. Supermarkets, have seen sales rise and have all made increased profits during during UK lockdown periods. On 4 December, 6 of our largest supermarket chains (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi) agreed to pay back the government Covid-related support they received earlier this year (a total of almost £1.81bn) Waitrose have so far refused to follow suit. Legally they have the right to choose to retain this money, but they cannot justify the decision in the grounds that their business was in trouble because of Covid.

As austerity simply hasn't worked and never will work. The last 10 years of cuts to public services has been pointless due to this economic crisis we currently face. What is the point of austerity if we have no idea how long round the corner the next finacial crash is. Hard working people should not have to pay the price and carry the burden of a virus nobody asked for.

As it stands a business can only get a bounce back loan or top up a bounce back loan to the value of 25% of 2019’s turnover, at the beginning of this awful pandemic no one thought we would still be in lockdowns at this stage of proceedings, small businesses like myself who are a one director company need to access these funds to stay afloat, but apparently once you have had the 25% there are no more accessible funds, this needs upgrading so that small individual businesses can access desperate funding, also businesses with premises have had grants no repayable and other small businesses with no premises have had no grants what so ever. It’s important as sole traders and small LTD company’s keep towns and local areas supported with there services and offer job opportunities to local people in the community, a lot of small local businesses will go under if extra funding is not made available,

At this time of the pandemic there must be many people resorting to using credit cards and really are being ripped off. Credit card companies must be making huge profits at the expense of the public's difficulties during these times

The BBLS is fantastic and will certainly save thousands of jobs and businesses if they can access it of course. The fact of the matter is the treasury has told the banks to lend but you have to have an account with the accredited bank. They won’t let you have one. The business is eligible great but that doesn’t mean the bank will give you an account to have the loan. How does that work ? I like 300,000 other businesses can’t access the scheme have been told no new applications or declined for an account not the loan just the account . If the treasury doesn’t open the doors directly we might as well close the business now. This isn’t going to happen the treasury know the problem but won’t act instead just leave it to the banks to decide our fate. Why won’t anyone do anything