Economy Minister Diane Dodds last week announced that every adult in the North of Ireland will be eligible for a £100 voucher to spend on the high street.
People over the age of 18 can apply for the scheme, which is designed to encourage spending at retail and hospitality outlets, which have been adversely affected by lockdown measures.
The card cannot be used for internet shopping and the application process will be through an online portal.
Funding of £145 million has been allocated for its rollout.
It will be a welcome boost for Derry and Strabane non-essential traders, including outdoor hospitality, who came out of their third lockdown last Friday, April 30.
The remainder of the hospitality sector has been given an indicative date of Monday, May 24 to reopen without mitigations.
This morning MLAs on the Economy Committee have been briefed by senior civil servants from the Department of the Economy on the High Street Voucher Scheme
Tommy O’Reilly started the briefing and said the voucher scheme “represents a significant boost to the local economy”.
The scheme was first mentioned in November 2020, he said, and will give adults a pre-paid card to spend in the local economy.
“This type of stimulus pumps money into businesses which are open and trading,” said Mr O’Reilly.
The primary reason for not progressing the scheme in 2021, was due to public health and lockdown said the official, adding that pre-paid card use during this time “would not have directly benefited the targeted retail and hospitality sectors”, “would contradict the stay at home advice” and “could potentially have increased the risk of community transmission”.
The department believes that the “end of the summer is probably the most appropriate time to deliver this spending boost” said Mr O’Reilly.
Committee chair Caoimhe Arcihbald said the members have had no background information on the scheme.
She asks Tommy O’Reilly about the department’s research and he says they hope to have some results with regard to impact in four to six weeks.
The Sinn Féin MLA then asked about the delivery of the scheme and how it can be accessed for people who do not have an internet connection.
Economy Department official Keith Foster said advisory groups are being set up to ensure the scheme will be available to people who are “disengaged or do not have access to the internet”.
Dr Archibald asked for more information on what the money can be spent on.
“I don’t think that at the moment we’ve finalised the list,” said Tommy O’Reilly.
“We are trying to ensure that it’s supporting the retail sector and the wholesale sector, but in terms of exclusions we haven’t really got to the final list of that,” he added.
Dave Vincent from the Strategic Investment Board said that “we have a fairly tight planned rollout” of around six to seven weeks.
“People will start to see them within days rather than weeks or months,” he added.
“Technically the scheme will run for the financial year, but the intention is that we will run the scheme over the period that the research indicates which at this point is August through to kind of October or November time, not displacing the Christmas peak in spend which is proposed,” he said.
Sinéad McLaughlin, the deputy chair of the committee, asked what impact the high street voucher scheme will have on GDP and stimulating jobs.Tommy O’Reilly replied: “This scheme is not a job creation scheme. This scheme is about supporting local businesses”.
The department official added that “it’s not directly there to increase jobs per se”.
As for work done to date, Mr O’Reilly said there is a business case being worked on at the minute around the scheme.
DUP Foyle MLA Gary Middleton said the announcement of the scheme is “very welcome news”.“We don’t want to see everyone rushing to one massive retailer which has done very well,” said the DUP MLA.
As a Foyle MLA he wanted to see to it used locally in Derry to help boost traders.
“Can it be used anywhere in the UK, can it be used for example in the Republic of Ireland?” he asked.
Dave Vincent of the SIB replied: “We can tie down spend to geographically being in Northern Ireland. So it’s only in bricks and mortar outlets at this time in Northern Ireland.”
East Derry MLA Claire Sugden said: “I think you might find yourselves getting into difficulty if you started providing proscriptive lists of where it (the £100 voucher) can and can’t be spent.”
She also wanted to know if it can be used as part payment for a more expensive item.
“The big driver is the media and marketing campaign,” replied Dave Vincent of SIB.
“In terms of the part payment, it is like a pre-paid debit card so they can choose to do that,” he added.
Economy officials said they still needed to check if the £100 voucher would affect people on benefits such as Universal Credit.
Tommy O’Reilly said: “I think the intention is that it would not be deemed as being income and so therefore the purpose of universal credit, or other income related benefits, it wouldn’t count.
“But what I will do is, I will check that because clearly if it’s going to impact on people’s benefit system that would be counterproductive.”
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