More than a million furloughed workers will get taxpayer-funded wage subsidies after a huge claims rush by firms.
More than 2,200 applications per minute flooded in when the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme opened at 8am yesterday. By 4pm, 140,000 had been received.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak praised thousands of staff at HM Revenue and Customs and the Treasury, many of whom came out of retirement, for ‘working around the clock at kitchen tables and in spare rooms’ to get the system working.
Fears that HMRC’s website would be overwhelmed were unfounded and most businesses reported on social media that they could apply without a hitch.
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At last night’s Downing Street briefing, Mr Sunak said: ‘Exactly a month ago today I stood at this lectern and said we would step in and help pay people’s wages. We promised the support would be available by the end of April and today we deliver our promise.’ He vowed that firms would receive their cash in six working days.
‘The grants they’ll receive will help pay the wages of more than a million people – a million people who if they hadn’t been furloughed would have been at risk of losing their job,’ he added.
Dan Tomlinson, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: ‘The sheer scale of applications for the Government’s Job Retention Scheme on its opening day shows just how badly the scheme is needed.
Commuters Travel on London's underground network this morning. April 20 2020, amid the coronavirus lockdown
‘Without firms having the option to furlough staff, Britain could be facing the prospect of totally unprecedented numbers of people being unemployed. The claims made today alone are set to cost at least £4.2billion if staff are furloughed for three months.’
The scheme pays employees 80 per cent of wages up to £2,500 a month. Some nine million people – 30 per cent of the private sector workforce – are expected to benefit at a cost of £42billion up to the end of June. Experts fear the bill could top £60billion if the scheme runs for even longer.
The Resolution Foundation predicts up to 11.7million people could be furloughed or lose their jobs in the next three months.
There is concern that the scheme is being exploited by wealthy individuals and profitable firms who could afford to keep on staff on hold without taxpayer help.
Amid reports that Victoria Beckham had furloughed up to 30 staff at her loss-making fashion house, TV presenter and Mail Online columnist Piers Morgan slammed the former Spice Girl as ‘disgraceful’ for using the scheme when she and her husband David are collectively worth £335million.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, dragged into the row on ITV’s Good Morning Britain yesterday, said: ‘I think each person and each company should ask themselves, do they have to rely on the tax bed, because the scheme is meant to be if you’re about to make someone redundant and you haven’t got the money to continue to employ them.’
Hundreds of thousands of staff have already been furloughed by big companies which will be among those making claims..
Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser Angela MacLean, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and PHE Medical Director Yvonne Doyle during a media briefing in Downing Street, London, April 20, 2020
Work continues at a drive-through coronavirus testing facility which is to open at Twickenham Stadium, in south west London, as part of the Government's UK-wide drive. April 20
Many, such as British Airways and McDonald’s, are highly profitable, while others such as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic and Sir Philip Green’s retail empire, have billionaire owners.
Mr Sunak also revealed that the number of emergency business interruption loans approved had doubled over the last week to 12,000. But he was ‘not persuaded’ by calls to increase government guarantees on these loans from 80 per cent to 100 per cent.
Britain’s banks have been heavily criticised for routinely rejecting applications from desperate companies and for making the application process too time- consuming and laborious.
Genial Rishi's gowns from Myanmar? It sounded more like an Arthur Daley Wheeze...
By Henry Deedes for The Daily Mail
Yesterday was Rishi Sunak’s turn to host the Downing Street press briefing. Ugh. What a way to start the week.
Forgive the mope, but just seeing the Chancellor nowadays is enough to make you groan in despair, like running into a traffic warden or those men on the beach who pop up out of nowhere to charge you for a sun lounger.
Nothing unpleasant about Rishi of course, quite the reverse. He’s the most genial Chancellor we’ve had since Ken Clarke. It’s just that his economic news during the crisis usually makes you want to crawl back into bed and pull the duvet over your head.
Rishi was here to discuss the Government’s furloughing scheme, which he hopes will save over a million jobs.
NHS chiefs say supplies of gowns are 'critically low', and they need around 150,000 a day. Pictured: Medical staff are seen putting on PPE at a testing centre in Rochdale, Greater Manchester
Some 140,000 firms had already applied for the emergency cash since the Treasury’s phone lines opened at 8am that morning. That’s around £40billion pouring from the Treasury coffers every three months. Terrifying.
He also announced he would be signing off another £500million in funds to help struggling start-up companies.
With his scheme now up and running, Rishi might have afforded himself a little strut at the lectern – but for the embarrassing issue of NHS protection equipment shortages.
The Chancellor admitted this had been an ‘international challenge’ but he insisted the Government was now getting on top of it.
With his scheme now up and running, Rishi might have afforded himself a little strut at the lectern – but for the embarrassing issue of NHS protection equipment shortages
Apparently 140,000 protective gowns had just arrived from Myanmar and were making their way to the front line. Protective gowns procured from Myanmar? It sounded like one of Arthur Daley’s business wheezes.
Guest medicos for the day were the Ministry of Defence’s Chief Scientific Adviser Angela McLean and Yvonne Doyle. Dame Angela offered us a slide showing that the number of people being admitted to hospital in London had fallen for the seventh day in a row.
Encouraging news, though deadpan McLean didn’t sound very excited by it. It’s possible she doesn’t ‘do’ excited.
Guest medicos for the day were the Ministry of Defence’s Chief Scientific Adviser Angela McLean
Media questions dragged on too long, but the punchiest query came from the BBC’s Hugh Pym who asked if the Government was ashamed about sending medical workers on to the front line without proper protective gear. Rishi deftly palmed the question on to Professor Doyle. She admitted ‘concern’ that some health workers felt they weren’t getting the gear they needed.
It’s possible any NHS staff tuning in between frantic shifts won’t have found the prof’s answer particularly reassuring.
Elsewhere, it had been at least a week since Tony Blair last spoke out, so naturally when his modestly-titled think-tank – the ‘Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’ – published its five-point plan to tackle coronavirus, Britain’s media outlets cleared their morning schedules to allow him to have his say.
Mr Blair appeared via videolink perched in front of an exposed brick wall and a swirly modern artwork, presumably from somewhere inside his luxury Buckinghamshire schloss.
As ever with Blair, nothing about this scene looked entirely natural. You wonder whether the backdrop had been decided on the night before by an advisory committee.
He’s looking haggard now, the old boy. His thinning locks are silver, the face so lined you could take a brass rubbing from it. He wore a white shirt with a collar so generous it would not have looked amiss at a 1970s roller-skate disco.
Blair was sympathetic to the Government. The virus was the ‘most difficult challenge’ he had ever seen in politics.
From an ex-PM who endured ten years of being undermined by his own Chancellor, this was no small statement.
Still, Blair felt Boris has been ‘behind the curve’ at the beginning of the crisis.
It was at this point that the words ‘If I were back in government’ passed ruefully from his lips. Then he launched into an explanation of how he would have done things differently.
But by that point, I’m afraid I was too busy scrabbling around for the remote control to have heard what it was.
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