Mr. John A. Moran:

These things are done artificially. A grant is some sort of refund of the rates a business has paid, as Mr. Butler said. Many sole traders, such as people working on gardens or the average taxi driver, do not pay rates and they may have the same start-up costs as others. We need to find a way to give them a start-up grant and not simply tie it to these things artificially. Who cares, given that money is fungible? The rates will have been paid last year. If it is to be tied to anything, it should probably be tied to the profitability of firms because that is a quick and easy way to work out which firms were trading last year and making money, but that would not deal with start-up businesses. We think it would be better to release the artificial constraints on the grants and just tie them to the losses that firms are incurring, which they can prove.