[ad_1]
Rishi Sunak could cut government wage support from 80% to 60% in the coming months as part of a plan to get Britain back to work, it was said today.
The Chancellor is trying to find a way to ‘reduce’ the employee support scheme that currently sees the state pay 80 percent of a worker’s salary to a monthly limit of £ 2,500.
Mr Sunak has said that the current situation is ‘not sustainable’ in the long term with official statistics showing that 6.3 million workers have been laid off at a taxpayer cost of £ 8 billion.
A new analysis released today showed that more than half of British adults are receiving some form of money from the state with more than 1.8 million new claims from Universal Credit since mid-March.
Considering the unemployed, 5.4 million public sector workers and 12 million pensioners, the state now pays just over half of the 52 million adults in the country.
In an interview last night, Sunak tried to reassure workers and companies that they will not face an “abrupt edge” of subsidies that will be withdrawn immediately when the blockade measures are eased.
But amid signs of tensions within the government about the huge burden on the country’s finances, Sunak noted that the licensing plan could soon cost the same as the NHS budget, an estimated £ 11 billion per month.
“I am working, as we speak, to discover the most effective way to reduce the scheme (license) and make it easier for people to return to work in a measured way,” he told ITV.
‘As some scenarios have suggested, we are potentially spending as much on the licensing scheme as we do on the NHS, for example. That is clearly not a sustainable situation. ‘
The Evening Standard reported that one way forward that Mr. Sunak is considering is to reduce government wage support from 80% to 60% with more reductions to follow.
Another option would be to allow suspended staff to return to work, but they would only receive a smaller state subsidy.
Downing Street did not deny that wage support could be reduced. The prime minister’s official spokesman said the chancellor was “working on the most effective way to reduce the scheme to make it easier for people to return to work in a measured way.”
It came as new data suggested that the UK economy is on the path to a deeper slowdown than anything seen in living memory as the service sector plummeted to a new all-time low.
The closely watched IHS Markit / CIPS purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to 13.4 in April, the worst score since the survey began in 1996.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak (in yesterday’s photo) has promised that there will be no ‘cliff edge’ limit for the license plan, but acknowledged that that level of spending was not ‘sustainable’ in the long term.
The number of UK adults now receiving some form of money from the state is now approximately 27 million out of a total adult population of 52 million.
Downing Street revealed yesterday that the monthly cost of the license is £ 8 billion. The NHS has a monthly budget of approximately £ 11 billion
Police patrol a street in London as closed shops leave millions of people out of work or out of work
On another challenging day for the UK economy:
- Gasoline prices fell to a four-year low with the average cost of a liter of fuel down to £ 1.08.
- The new car market suffered its “worst performance in living memory” with a 97 percent drop in April.
- Figures released by the Society of Engine Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed that only 4,321 new cars were registered last month, about 156,743 fewer than in April 2019.
- Great Britain and the USA USA Business conversations began through a video call when International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and the US Trade Representative. The USA, Robert Lighthizer, launched the first two-week round.
- According to a new survey, one in four child care providers fear they will be out of a job within a year.
- The CBI said that production for small and medium-sized manufacturers in the first quarter had fallen at the fastest rate in more than a decade.
The blockade is estimated to be removing £ 2 trillion a day from UK GDP, destroying millions of jobs, and the government hopes to borrow up to £ 270 trillion this year.
As a result, pressure increases on the Government to find a way to get out of the confinement.
Boris Johnson is expected to reveal a ‘road map’ to ease the draconian curves on Sunday, but there appears to be little chance of considerable relaxation before the end of the month.
Under the license bailout, employers affected by the coronavirus are entitled to claim money from taxpayers to pay 80 percent of each staff member’s wages, with a limit of £ 2,500 per month.
The scheme is designed to prevent companies from having to permanently lay off staff as companies stop due to the pandemic. Workers without permission cannot work for your company.
Downing Street said yesterday: ‘Since launch [on April 20], 800,000 employers have used the job retention scheme to obtain 6.3 million jobs. That is a total value of £ 8 billion.
The leave plan was originally established to cover the salaries of the temporarily laid off staff until the end of May, but was then extended by one month.
Secretary of Labor and Pensions Therese Coffey also gave an update yesterday on UC claims.
“From March 16 to the end of April, we have received more than 1.8 million claims by Universal Credit, more than 250,000 job search subsidy claims and more than 20,000 employment and support subsidy claims,” he said.
‘In general, this is six times the volume that we would normally experience and in one week we had a tenfold increase.
“UC’s claims rate appears to have stabilized at around 20,000 to 25,000 per day, which is double the standard week prior to Covid-19.”
The minister said his department had issued nearly 700,000 advances to claimants who felt they could not wait for their routine payment.
She said the vast majority of these received money within 72 hours. Applicants for benefits and UC were told in March that they will face no sanctions for three months if they do not seek work because of the crisis.
When the number of patients who died in COVID-19 peaked in hospitals, around April 8, it was still relatively low in nursing homes, which then increased in the days and weeks that followed.
The number of people dying each week during the UK coronavirus crisis has been significantly higher, more than double in recent weeks, than the average number of deaths at this time of year.
But Miss Coffey urged them yesterday to “continue looking for work wherever they can do it.”
A new website has been created to advertise job opportunities: jobhelp.dwp.gov.uk.
It currently has 58,200 vacancies.
The surprising cost of the licensing plan and UC’s additional claims show just how badly the economy has been hit by the coronavirus crisis.
Strict rules of social distancing have meant that most stores have been forced to close, along with bars and restaurants.
Many other companies have been affected, forcing employers to request government bailouts to prevent workers from being fired.
Analysis in The Daily Telegraph suggested that about 27 million adults, about 53 percent of the total, now receive some form of government financial assistance.
The figure is made up of workers without permission, people claiming benefits, retirees and public sector workers.
Former Chancellor Tory Lord Lamont of Lerwick told the Telegraph: “It is neither practical nor affordable for the state to pay people not to work; ultimately, the government only has the money it gets from people’s taxes. that create wealth. ”
‘It is not a sustainable position, except in the short term.
“It illustrates the danger and precariousness of our situation.”
The high cost of the scheme increases the possibility of post-crisis tax increases to pay for the brochures.
Labor has warned that the wealthiest will have to shoulder most of the burden.
New data released this morning showed that the UK economy is on track to take a massive hit in the second quarter of the year.
“April PMI data highlights that the slowdown in the UK economy during the second quarter of 2020 will be much more profound and widespread than anything remembered,” said Tim Moore, chief economic officer at IHS Markit, who compiles the survey.
He said the latest survey score is consistent with a seven percent quarterly decline in the economy, but even that prediction of the end of the world may be optimistic.
“We hope that the actual decline in GDP may be even greater, in part because the PMI excludes the vast majority of the self-employed and the retail sector,” added Moore.
The United Kingdom has one of the worst coronavirus mortality rates per million in the world. Experts have warned that this data is not a true picture of how each country is doing because each country records statistics differently.
Lord Lamont, photographed in January 2019, has said that “it is neither practical nor affordable for the state to pay people who do not work”
The economy had already recovered in March, when the survey found a record low of 34.5. Anything below a score of 50 is considered a contraction in the sector. The previous record low was 40.1 in November 2008 compared to 13.4 last month.
In April, the survey found that only one in five service companies managed to avoid a drop in activity compared to March. Some companies, affected by total closings, said that their business had completely stopped.
The latest statistics came when Tory MPs urged Johnson to end the coronavirus blockade as soon as possible.
Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) said in a debate in the House of Commons last night that not doing so would “unleash a tidal wave of human misery” due to the number of companies likely to close permanently.
He added: “I think we need to have a frank, open and honest debate on the ethics of exchanging lives tomorrow to save lives today.”
Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Tories Backies Committee, echoed a similar sentiment by saying: “ I hope that as ministers approach the second 21-day review they always do so with a view to removing restrictions. and remove these arbitrary rules and limitations on freedom as quickly as possible. “
He added: “It will be even more important that we rely on common sense and voluntary cooperation rather than arbitrary rules.”
