The relief notice (Hawkers and Social Protection's relief exemption)

Tenancy terms require each operator to work at least 4 hours a business day and forbid leaving the stall entirely to assistants. NEA already lets a stallholder appoint a joint operator (since 2012), and a hawker who falls ill can appoint a joint operator or a nominee (MSE, 10 March 2025). Neither fits a sudden illness: a nominee, usually family, takes 4–6 weeks to approve, and a joint operator must work four hours every business day. Under the relief notice the hawker files online, a registered Corps cook runs the stall for up to 30 days a year (more with a medical certificate), and those days count as personal operation. The notice is deemed approved unless NEA objects within two working days.

Who pays

The library gives this mechanism no who-pays tag of its own.

What it costs

Zero

NEA's Joint Operator Scheme and nominee route, made faster (administrative)

What it builds on

NEA's joint-operator scheme (since 2012) and nominee route, which covers illness but takes 4–6 weeks to process (§2.11.1).

The ask of Government

Decision

The relief notice – a pre-registered Corps cook becomes a joint operator for the days of a hawker's absence, up to 30 a year (more with a medical certificate), without the standing four-hour duty; the days count as personal operation; deemed approved unless NEA objects within two working days

Instrument

NEA's Joint Operator Scheme and nominee route, made faster (administrative)

Fiscal cost

Zero

What it buys

Builds the Relief-Hawker Corps (§2.7) on NEA's joint-operator and nominee routes, so cover arrives in two working days rather than four to six weeks, and illness never has to look like subletting.

From §2.11.2, §7.7.

Who gains

Hawkers

Illness never has to look like subletting (§2.11.2).