Chancellor Rishi Sunak has missed another chance to help those who have been left behind with no support throughout the covid pandemic, say leading tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg.

Simon Rothenberg, a director at the firm said: “ The Chancellor delivered a stark warning to thousands of business owners, self-employed workers and employees that the economy will get worse before it gets better but is still not helping those that became self-employed after the 6th o April 2019.”

He added: “The self-employed income support scheme is still based upon 6 April 2018 – 5 April19 tax return data. It excludes all of those who became self-employed after 5 April 2019 and therefore the relief is based on data which is 2 years out of date.

“The system needs to be updated to reflect 6 April 2019 – 5 April 2020 data in the interest of fairness and to address some of the largest excluded groups from the current and previous support measures.”

Simon said: “ Many small business owners remunerate themselves with small salaries and dividends from the profits of their business. The support measures to date make no allowance for those who normally receive a divided and again these business owners have been continually forgotten with no support for such business owners throughout the pandemic. The Chancellor needs to urgently consider people who have been remunerated in this way to give a little ray of hope given his dire message.”