Call for the Guardian to pay furlough back

CONSERVATIVE MPs have called for The Guardian to return the money it took from the furlough scheme after it highlighted how other companies had used the programme.

Andrew Bridgen, a Tory backbench MP, said it was a “huge embarrassment” the newspaper had claimed up to £100,000 last December “when other newspaper groups have not taken it”.

He criticised the paper for reporting yesterday how salary bills of companies owned by “billionaire tax exiles ... Saudi royals and Gulf states” have been boosted by “millions of pounds of taxpayer-funded furlough money”.

The newspaper, which highlighted how pub groups Mitchells & Butlers and JD Wetherspoon were the biggest claimants in December, also furloughed staff, claiming between £50,000 and £100,000. In 2019, the Scott Trust, established in 1936 to secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian, valued its endowment at £1.01 billion with a £134.8 million cash operating reserve.

Mr Bridgen said: “They should repay the money. It must be a huge embarrassment, not just that they took it but they have been caught taking it when other newspaper groups have not taken it. Given they are such harsh critics of the Government and its policies, they seem to have been very keen to exploit this one for their own benefit.

“Their loyal, liberal, metropolitan elite, sandal-wearing readership will be choking on their granola this morning.”

Jake Berry, chairman of the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs, added: “The furlough scheme was brought in by the Government to ensure that profitable businesses continued. I am not sure that the Government had in mind propping up a loss-making, Left-wing newspaper.”

The Guardian report added how “dozens more firms have received between £1m and £25m” before listing British Airways, Whitbread, Tui and Primark as being among that category.

It then focused on smaller companies who had claimed far smaller sums but were owned by business people either living as tax exiles or from Gulf states.

The Guardian last night referred to a response given last June in which its editor, Kath Viner, denied feeling “queasy” about taking taxpayers’ cash despite completing a three-year plan to stem years of heavy losses.

Ms Viner, who then had a salary of more than £370,000, insisted the use of the furlough scheme was “reasonable”.

did furlough staff in April but paid back the money in June.