Rishi Sunak has indicated that emergency support measures such as the furlough scheme will be extended beyond the end of April in the budget on Wednesday.
In an interview on Sunday, the chancellor also ruled out speeding up the easing of lockdown even if the data improved and defended his “eat out to help out” scheme.
The number of furloughed workers in the UK rose by 700,000 to 4.7 million in January, during the third Covid lockdown, according to official figures. The scheme pays up to 80% of salaries to those who cannot work because of Covid-19 restrictions.
Asked by Sophy Ridge on Sky News if there would be an extension of the furlough scheme, Sunak said he would “do whatever it took” to support workers.
“I said at the beginning of this crisis that I would do whatever it took to protect people, families and businesses through this crisis and I remain completely committed to that. The PM in the roadmap set out a path for us to recover and reopen and I want to support people and businesses along that path.
“I’m not going to comment on specific policies but I want to make sure people realise that we are going to be there to support them and if you look at our track record we went big, we went early and there’s more to come next week,” he said.
(March 8, 2021) Step 1, part 1
In effect from 8 March, all pupils and college students returned fully. Care home residents could receive one regular, named visitor.
(March 29, 2021) Step 1, part 2
In effect from 29 March, outdoor gatherings allowed of up to six people, or two households if this is larger, not just in parks but also gardens. Outdoor sport for children and adults allowed. The official stay at home order ended, but people encouraged to stay local. People still asked to work from home where possible, with no overseas travel allowed beyond the current small number of exceptions.
(April 12, 2021) Step 2
In effect from 12 April, non-essential retail, hair and nail salons, and some public buildings such as libraries and commercial art galleries reopened. Most outdoor venues can reopen, including pubs and restaurants, but only for outdoor tables and beer gardens. Customers will have to be seated but there will be no need to have a meal with alcohol.
Also reopen are settings such as zoos and theme parks. However, social contact rules still apply here, so no indoor mixing between households and limits on outdoor mixing. Indoor leisure facilities such as gyms and pools can also open, but again people can only go alone or with their own household. Reopening of holiday lets with no shared facilities is also allowed, but only for one household. Funerals can have up to 30 attendees, while weddings, receptions and wakes can have 15.
(May 17, 2021) Step 3
From 17 May people can be able to meet indoors in groups of up to six or as two households, or outdoors in groups of up to 30 people. People can also choose whether to socially distance with close family and friends, meaning that they can sit close together and hug. In care homes, residents can have up to five named visitors and be entitled to make low risk visits out of the home.
People can meet in private homes, or in pubs, bars and restaurants, which will all be able to reopen indoors. Weddings, receptions and other life events can take place with up to 30 people. The cap on numbers attending funerals will depend on the size of the venue.
Most forms of indoor entertainment where social distancing is possible will also be able to resume, including cinemas, museums and children’s play areas. Theatres, concert halls, conference centres and sports stadia will have capacity limits in place.
Organised adult sport and exercise classes can resume indoors and saunas and steam rooms will reopen. Hotels, hostels and B&Bs in the UK will allow overnight stays in groups of up to six people or two households.
People will also be able to travel to a small number of countries on the green list and will not have to quarantine on return.
Pupils will no longer be expected to wear face coverings in classrooms or in communal areas in secondary schools and colleges as a result of decreasing infection rates. Twice weekly home testing will remain in place. School trips with overnight stays will also now be possible.
(June 21, 2021) Step 4
No earlier than 21 June, the government had planned that all legal limits would be removed on mixing, and the last sectors to remain closed, such as nightclubs, would reopen. Large events would be able take place. However, the prime minister has said that the rise of the B.1.617.2 variant of coronavirus first detected in India may threaten this date, and health secretary Matt Hancock said it will not be confirmed before 14 June whether the government plans to stick to the timetable.
Peter Walker Political correspondent and Rachel Hall
In the interview, Sunak ruled out speeding up the easing of lockdown even if data showed an improvement in the situation.
“What we want is a cautious but irreversible approach. That’s why we’ve taken the approach that we have and those will be the earliest dates that we think we can do the various things we’ve laid out. But we’re doing everything we can to make sure that it is hopefully irreversible, that’s what we want to see.”
“What businesses don’t want is a stop-start approach to this, we want to know that it’s a one-way road and that’s why it’s cautious. We’ve given the earliest of dates to give a sense of timing and a sense of direction and then obviously we might have to adjust those if things are not going exactly as we would like, but look the early signs are promising.”
He also defended the “eat out to help out” scheme from claims that it helped increase coronavirus infection rates amid reports that it could be reintroduced.
“Areas where ‘eat out to help out’ was used the most, for example in the south-west, were the slowest to see any rise and in fact had very low infection rates. And almost all other major countries have had rises over the autumn and winter and they didn’t have ‘eat out to help out’ so I think it’s a bit odd to ascribe causality in that way,” he said.
Sunak on Sunday refused to confirm whether he planned to reintroduce the contentious scheme but defended the decision to subsidise trips to pubs and restaurants last summer amid criticism that it contributed to the second wave of the virus in the UK.
“Lots of things we do cause transmission. We have to balance all of these things and those are difficult decisions we all have to make,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
The Treasury counts the scheme, which cost £522m, as a success, with more than 100m meals claimed in August 2020.
Amid reports that he will announce a “stealth tax” on income on Wednesday, Sunak did not deny that he plans to increase taxes soon before slashing them in a pre-election budget.
Asked as reported last month if he told Conservative MPs that he would seek to raise taxes now and then cut them before the election, he told Ridge: “I would like to be able to keep taxes low for people in general, I’m a Conservative and I believe in that.
“But I want to deliver our promises that we made to the British people that we would be responsible with their money, that we would look after the nation’s finances and we would deliver strong public services.
“I think in the short-term what we need to do is protect the economy and keep supporting the economy through the roadmap, and over time what we need to do is make sure our public finances are sustainable.
“That isn’t going to happen overnight, that’s going to be work that takes time given the scale of the shock that we’ve experienced but if you’re asking do I want to deliver low taxes for people, of course I do.”
Former cabinet ministers Jeremy Hunt and Damian Green have urged Boris Johnson to use the budget to produce a long-awaited plan to pay for social care’.
“We have a 10-year plan for the NHS. But two years after it was published there is still nothing similar for the social care system, even though the NHS plan will fail without one because the two systems are totally inter-dependent,” they wrote on the Telegraph’s website.
“This budget is the time to announce that such a plan for social care will be developed and published ahead of the Spending Review in the autumn.”
