As doors open up, we're backing you all the way.

Hundreds of thousands of pubs, cafés, gyms, museums, cinemas and more are opening their doors again today as businesses across England take another cautious stride down the road to post-COVID recovery.

And caution is very much the watchword. While the combined efforts of the British people and our fantastic vaccination programme have squashed case numbers right down, the emergence of a new and potentially much more infectious variant is a sobering reminder that this fight isn’t over yet.

That’s why it’s vital that businesses continue to operate in a COVID-secure way, for example with social distancing, facemasks where needed and as much ventilation as you can muster.

But while we continue to assess the situation in the run up to step 4 of the roadmap, I know just how important today is to people who run businesses of all shapes and sizes.

You’ve borne the economic brunt of this pandemic and borne with us through the necessarily cautious process of unlocking – an act of forbearance and sacrifice that has allowed us to make the kind of progress with prudence that we’ve seen these past few weeks.

So I want to say a huge thank you for everything you’ve done and continue to do for our country. From the self-employed sole trader to the vast multinational chain, businesses like yours are the heartbeat of our communities and our nation – which is why, right from the start of this pandemic we in Government have been doing everything we can to help you through it.

The pioneering furlough scheme protecting millions of jobs, the Kickstart programme to support job creation, eviction bans for commercial tenants and so on. The support loan schemes we launched last year have seen more than ￡70 billion of government-backed borrowing – when the Bounce Back Loans scheme launched, one bank alone reported receiving applications at a rate of three per second. 

Of course, many businesses have essentially been on ice for months now, and we’re not expecting you to simply pick up where you left off straight away. So we’ll be staying right by your side as you get back up to full speed, with a new range of restart grants and recovery loans, extensions to business rate reductions, and the latest wave of support for the self-employed.

And that’s just the start. Because we’re building back better in this country, with a Plan for Growth that will not simply take our economy back to where it was before the pandemic but make us stronger, greener, fairer and more prosperous than ever.

The Budget created super-deductions to encourage investment and the ￡520 million Help to Grow scheme for SMEs. We’re making game-changing investments in infrastructure, better connecting you with suppliers and customers. Our 10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution is putting carbon-neutral rocket boosters under new, more sustainable industries. We’re putting billions into innovation to ensure that the UK becomes a Science and Tech Superpower. And our trade deal with the EU is just one of almost 70 agreements and frameworks that will open up markets and opportunities right around the world. 

Together it all adds up to a grand vision for the economy of tomorrow, a post-pandemic ecosystem in which you have everything you need to start, build and grow a world-class business wherever in the country you happen to be.

Today’s reopening marks the latest stage of that journey and the latest milestone on the road to recovery.

There’s still a long way to go, and we still all need to be careful – more than ever, in fact, as we start to rely less on legal powers and more on the common sense of individuals, so do remember that mantra of hands, face, space and fresh air.

But, with roadmap in hand and vaccines in arms, I know we will get there in the end – and that your business and this government will be side by side every step of the way.