To ask the Minister for the Economy, in relation to the Limited Company Director's Support Scheme, to detail the number of applications (i) submitted; (ii) approved; (iii) approved and paid out; (iv) rejected; and (v) still to be processed.

The Limited Company Directors Support Scheme closed to new applications on 4 March 2021, as of 23 March 2021: (i) 6,169 applications had been submitted to the LCDSS. (ii) 647 applications processed (iii) 136 payments issued (iv) 4 applications rejected (v) 5,780 remain to be processed I fully appreciate how important this grant support is, however, in the rolling out of the Limited Company Director's Support Scheme, a potential issue was identified relating to the tax treatment of the proposed grant. In order to prevent retrospective difficulties for applicants, the decision was taken to pause the processing of applications until a solution to the tax treatment issue was identified. Whilst I appreciate that this delay is frustrating for applicants it was considered the best approach to reduce the overall administrative burden and delay of payments. After taking advice from relevant stakeholders, including HMRC, a solution to allow payments to proceed has been identified. Invest NI, who manage the scheme on behalf of my Department, has written to all relevant applicants providing an update and seeking all relevant additional information to enable processing of applications to proceed. The first payments under the scheme were issued 19 March 2021 and to date £476k in support has been provided. Invest NI remain committed to assessing and verifying all outstanding applications, and processing payments, to eligible applicants as quickly as possible.