Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to announce that employers will need to pay 20% of their employees furlough wage starting from the end of August.
The government is currently paying 80% of an employees wage in the generous furlough scheme. But, those who are still furloughing workers after August will need to pay 20% of the wage, whilst the government cover the other 60%.
The treasury did not deny the reports above.
Around 8.4 million workers in total were furloughed due to the Coronavirus, costing the government an expected £15b. A further £7b is estimated to have been spent on self employed workers too.
The scheme, which was launched in March with great success, wasn’t meant to last longer than 3 months, but due to current circumstances it’s necessary it lasts longer.
The environment secretary said the scheme was very generous, and did well “to help people through these extraordinary times and to ensure that businesses’ overheads could be covered”.
But Labours’ Nick Thomas-Symonds brought up a good point, saying: “The PM and the chancellor both said they would do whatever it took to get through this and people would not lose out for doing the right thing. They have to be held to that.”
For now though, it still seems as if the government is on the public’s side, and wants to keep paying them for as long as they need to, despite reports that the furlough scheme may be getting closed to new entrants.
There is still a lot up in the air regarding the self employment scheme, however. The employees scheme has been extended to October but there hasn’t been many certain words regarding how self employed people are going to get paid. This obviously concerns a large number of people, but MPs are calling for the powers that be to address problems like this as soon as they can.
