Furlough scheme to be extended
Support for millions of workers to stay in place until October, says Chancellor
THE GOVERNMENT furlough scheme which is paying the wages for 7.5 million workers across the UK will be extended until October, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced, as deaths linked to coronavirus across the country topped 40,000.
Mr Sunak made the announcement as the crisis caused by the pandemic continued amid economic warnings and new stark figures on the number of people who had succumbed to the disease.
Analysis of Office for National Statistics data, which records all deaths which mention Covid-19
on the death certificate, and Department of Health figures showed there had been 40,297 coronavirus-related deaths in the UK since the beginning of the year.
At the end of March, a Government scientific adviser had said keeping the number of coronavirus deaths below 20,000 would still be “a good result” for the UK.
At least 2,754 of the 40,297 deaths were in Yorkshire, and in the latest ONS data available – recording deaths in the week up to May 1 – more than 40 per cent of these were in the region’s care homes.
Thousands of excess deaths recorded during the coronavirus crisis could be “collateral damage” caused by the indirect effects of the pandemic, Professor
Sir David Spiegelhalter, the chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, University of Cambridge, said.
On the 50th full day of the lockdown, Mr Sunak yesterday said he would not give up on the public, as he announced further support for workers. And he pledged to continue the agenda promised during the General Election to narrow the North-South divide.
Mr Sunak told MPs that from August there will be greater flexibility in order to allow furloughed staff to begin returning to work.
“Employers currently using the scheme will be able to bring furloughed employees back parttime,” he said.
“And we will ask employers to start sharing with the Government the cost of paying people’s salaries.”
Under the scheme – which has already cost the taxpayer £10bn – staff will continue to receive the current level of support through a combination of state and employer contributions.
Officials have acknowledged the state will continue to make the largest contribution.
And looking past October, Mr Sunak said the levelling up agenda promised earlier in the year was key.
In an interview with the BBC, he said: “The agenda that we set out before and I talked about at the Budget is still very relevant. I talked a lot there about investing in our regions to make sure that we can drive up productivity wherever you happen to live.”
He added: “That agenda remains even more relevant today than it did then and we will not we will not at all retrench from delivering on that.”