‘We were a working family, now we’re paupers’
SELF-EMPLOYED Scots had mixed reactions to the Chancellor’s bailout last night, describing it as a ‘underwhelming’ but also a ‘relief’.
Glasgow taxi driver DONALD MCCOLL, 50, has seen his business grind to a halt, as underlying health issues mean he is vulnerable to coronavirus and must self-isolate.
Describing Rishi Sunak’s aid measures as ‘underwhelming’, he said: ‘My business has completely collapsed and vanished over the space of a week. We desperately need funding and there doesn’t seem to be any forthcoming any time soon.
‘My car finance has been put on hold, car insurance cancelled, and my wife [Tracy] lost her job in a salon, so we have no income whatsoever. We’ve gone from being a relatively stable working family to paupers in less than one week.
‘The announcement from the Chancellor doesn’t cut it. It is too little, too late.
‘I need the phone [call] from Universal Credit to come quicker but the soonest date they gave me is next week sometime.
‘[The announcement] raises more questions than answers. If we claim Universal Credit, what happens?
‘What does it mean exactly? He [Mr Sunak] went on to say that they will take it all back through tax later on, and will equalise the income tax. That sounds more like a loan to me.’
He added: ‘Other countries are giving their citizens money right off the back and we’re dithering about.
‘People are really going to suffer from this. We’ll plod on and struggle by but other people may not be so fortunate.’
FIONA RUSSELL, 51, a journalist and blogger, has been self-employed for around 15 years. Her usually busy diary ‘now has about five days of work left’.
The mother of one, who is hoping her website, www.fionaoutdoors.co.uk, can be expanded to help make up for lost work, called the bailout a ‘relief’.
Miss Russell, of Bearsden, near Glasgow, said: ‘Coronavirus has devastated my work. I have never needed to ask anyone for any money. I’ve had work to do every day for ten hours a day. My diary now has about five days of work left, then it becomes very uncertain.
‘Because I am an outdoors and adventure journalist, a lot of my work is based upon events − like I might be reporting on a race − but pretty much everything has been cancelled.’
She added: ‘The announcement has been a little while in coming but I understand that it has taken a long while to work out. It will give me the ability to survive through this, but the concern is whether my work will come back.
‘I have a buffer and reserves, like many self-employed people, but I am grateful and the announcement is a relief.’
Personal trainer TRACY GRIFFEN, 4 , owns a fitness studio in Leith, Edinburgh, but has had to close.
She said: ‘[The bailout] will be very welcome. My income has completely dried up. The new measures are needed soon, like next week. Businesses can’t wait weeks or months for support.
‘We have bills to pay. I have a fitness studio which can no longer operate. I’ve just had apply to my bank to receive a payment holiday on the business loan.
I’m trying to work out how to do online personal training but there are so many offering online at the moment that it’s not going to be lucrative.’
She added: ‘There has been a lot of confusion over the past couple of weeks. I’ve had to adapt. My business has been running for 15 years. I’ve run it through a recession, through the first phase of the tram works on Leith Walk and the Beast from the East snowstorm [in 2018]. But nothing compares to this, ever.
‘I’m not panicking just yet, but I have no income.’