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UK coronavirus live: Rishi Sunak says government will pay self-employed up to £2,500 a month UK coronavirus live: Rishi Sunak says government will pay self-employed up to £2,500 a month
(32 minutes later)
Rolling coverage of all the latest UK coronavirus developmentsRolling coverage of all the latest UK coronavirus developments
First Sunak covers other coronavirus developments. Sunak ends saying he thinks this is a very generous package by international standards. And he ends with a message to the self-employed:
The government is supporting the NHS, he says. It is vital people stay at home to save lives. I will post a summary of the press conference shortly.
He says he has put forward a comprehensive economic plan to save jobs. It is already having an impact. Big employers have said they will protect jobs. This evening the Treasury will publish more details of how that scheme works. Harries says the government may want to test a sample of the population, once an antibody test becomes available, to get a sense of how coronavirus has spread.
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is holding his press conference now. He says he is announcing support for the self-employed. Harries says there may be “measures of lockdown” going forward in the coming months.
According to the Times’ Chris Smyth, we may not get a UK figure for coronavirus deaths today. But she says “flexing” the measures may be an option.
The UK is now spending £544m of its international aid money on the fight against coronavirus, according to No 10. Most of that is new funding announced today. She says the whole country will want to get back to normal as soon as possible.
There are have been four announcements today. She says success means lessening the spike of the curve and putting it forward.
£210m on developing a vaccine, with the funding to going through the the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. (See 4pm.) Q: Is this open to fraud? And do you accept people might try to cheat?
£40m on developing affordable treatments, with the funding going through the Therapeutic Accelerator, a fund for the rapid development of anti-retrovirals or immunotherapies against coronavirus which is already backed by the UK-based Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Mastercard. Sunak says he has taken the view that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. He says checks will be carried out.
£23 on developing easily manufactured test kits, with the funding going through the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, a partnership between academic organisations and pharmaceutical companies. Q: Smaller companies are saying they cannot get access to your Bank of England loans because they do not have investment-grade rating. Will you help?
£50m on a joint campaign with Unilever to promote the importance of hand washing. Sunak says he is aware of this issue. He says they are looking at means to construct a credit rating from information about firms’ relationships with their banks.
These announcements follow other commitments already made, which are: He says 80% of UK employment and 80% of UK turnover will be covered by the government’s loan schemes.
£71m on researching vaccines and testing kits. Q: Can you explain why the UK, unlike some other countries, gave up testing all people with symptoms?
Up to £150m for the International Monetary Fund to mitigate the impact of coronavirus on the world’s most vulnerable countries. Harries says the World Health Organisation said “test, test, test”. But they are the World Health Organisation. They have to advise countries with very different health systems. The UK has a very developed health system, she says.
The first rescue flight for British travellers stranded abroad has landed in Heathrow with 171 passengers including up to 20 vulnerable EU citizens. She says initially the UK had some successes with containment. But there comes a point in a pandemic where that is no longer appropriate, although she says “contact and trace” strategies still work in some contexts, such as in prisons and in care homes. “Contact and trace” is still used there, she says.
The government is seeking permission for three more flights, the first one expected this weekend, to help repatriate up to 1,000 Britons it believes are abroad. Q: What are the self-employed meant to live on until June?
It is also working with the authorities to try and resolve the situation that has arisen in a hostel in the Andean city of Cusco, the gateway to Machu Picchu, where 140 guests including nine Britons and one Irish national, have been quarantined for at least a month because two guests have caught coronavirus. Sunak says he has looked hard at the quickest way to deliver this. The employment scheme covers 90% of the population. That will be up and running by April. This scheme uses the same system. So some of the work will have to be done later. He has also given some people another four weeks to file a tax return.
It is understood there are currently around 12,000 EU nationals in the country which is under one of the world’s strictest lockdowns with no travel permitted. In June people will get three months’ worth of money in one go.
The Foreign Office has also doubled the number of staff at the call centre in Malaga, Spain through which 90% of the calls to embassies are routed. It will be doubling numbers again in the coming days. In the meantime, other support is available.
Sources say there are rigorous efforts under way to get six elderly Britons out of Kerala and active work to get others home from abroad, but efforts are hampered by lockdowns. Q: Are you saying the self-employed will have to pay more tax?
Some of the 4,000 beds at the new emergency NHS Nightingale hospital being set up at the ExCeL centre in Docklands, London, will be equipped with ventilators, it has emerged. Avensys, a firm that provides medical equipment and trains engineers in how to use it, has told the Guardian it has been asked to put together a training programme for engineers at the Nightingale so they can repair the ventilators there. Dan Sullivan from Avensys said: Sunak says he is just making the point that, given that the self-employed are now being treated the same, it is hard to justify the tax system treating them differently.
Around 100 animals face an indefinite stay at Battersea Cats and Dogs Home after the shelter shut its doors to the public during the coronavirus pandemic. Q: Are you worried about the health impact of people staying at home?
Staff across the home’s sites in London, Berkshire and Kent had launched a campaign to find foster homes for around 130 animals in the run-up to the lockdown. Harries says she is worried about that. Those told to shield at home have been given advice about their health.
Because re-homing has now been suspended, many animals will be stuck in the shelter’s kennels and cattery pens for the foreseeable. But she says people now don’t have to travel to work. They may have more time for exercise, she says.
Rob Young, its head of centre operations, told PA news agency: “They’re receiving the same, if not better, care and attention than they normally would do. Q: What about people who do not have three years worth of accounts? They might just have entered the workforce recently.
“We have as few staff on site as we possibly can but we do have enough to make sure their needs are met. Sunak says, for those without three years’ worth of accounts, the Treasury will look at what they do have. For those who do not have accounts, there is nothing they can do. He says they will have to go with the information they have.
“All the dogs are taken out at least twice a day, the cats are well looked after and given lots of cuddles.” For those how are very recently self-employed, it is not possible to operate a scheme like this, he says. He says there is too much fraud risk. But this will cover the vast, vast majority of people, he says.
Q: What is the estimated cost of the scheme? And how long will it run?
Sunak says this is equivalent to the scheme for the employed.
Q: After this is over, are you saying you will equalise the tax treatment of the employed and the self-employed?
Sunak says he is just making a point today that this intervention does make the case for consistency.
Q: Chris Whitty said yesterday the problem with testing was as global shortage of material. Why didn’t we order this months ago?
Harries says the UK “has ordered and we have planned ahead”. But every single country has ordered at the same time, She says.
She says this is not an issue of lack of forethought. It is about this being a brand new event, she says.
Q: People won’t get this money until June. You say they can get universal credit, but they do not get money for the first five weeks. Can you guarantee that if people apply for UC, they will get an advance payment?
Sunak says the government has made UC more generous.
And he says the DWP does pay advance payments, almost immediately, certainly within days.
Councils also have money to help families with council tax bills, he says.
At the press conference Jenny Harries, the chief medical officer for England, says it is too early to predict then the epidemic will peak.
She says “we must not take our foot off the pedal”.
The Treasury has posted details of the scheme in a Twitter thread starting here.
Sunak says he is treating the self-employed like the employed.
But in return, everyone must pay in, he says.
He is implying that he will reform the tax system so that the self-employed lose some of their tax advantages.
Sunak says he knows many self-employed people are deeply anxious. They are not covered by the employment support packaged announced on Friday last week.
He says he is announcing a new self-employed income support scheme.
The government will pay self-employed people a taxable grant based on their previous earnings over the last three years, worth up to 80% of earnings, and capped at £2,500 a month.
It will run for a minimum of three months, he says.
He says that is equivalent to the support available to the employed.
He says this will be open to anyone with average profits of £50,000 or less.
It will be open to people who make the majority of their income from self-employment.
And, to avoid fraud, it will only be open to people who are already self-employed and have a tax return from 2019.
He says 95% of the self-employed will be covered.
It will be available by June.
And anyone who missed the deadline for their tax return will get an extra four weeks, he says.