The Furlough scheme covering employees wages is set to end soon.
Sunak pictured giving a speech.
But due to new restrictions being put in place nation wide, the government only thinks it’s right that they create a new scheme supporting employees and businesses.
The Jobs Support Scheme will “directly support the wages of people in work, giving businesses who face depressed winter demand the option of keeping employees in a job on shorter hours rather than making them redundant”, according to reports.
The scheme will only pay for those working at least 1/3 of their normal contracted hours, and will begin on the 1st of November, when the current furlough scheme is set to end.
Because of the nature of jobs in the UK, the government sees it to be wrong to just cover people who are in the current furlough scheme, and continue doing so, because everyone works different sorts of hours and are bound to different contracts.
Sunak said: “As the economy reopens, it is fundamentally wrong to hold people in jobs that only exist within the furlough.
He also admitted: “I cannot save every business, I can’t save every job, no chancellor could, but what we must do is deal with the real problems and choices that businesses are facing now.”
In addition to this, he tweeted: “Nearly half a million businesses deferred more than £30 billion of VAT this year.
“Those payments are all due in one lump sum in March. Instead, I’m allowing businesses to spread their VAT bill over 11 repayments, with no interest to pay.
“This will benefit up to half a million businesses – on average, turning a one off £60k payment in March, into 11 payments of less than £6k.”
He also announced: “To give businesses longer to apply for all of our loan schemes, I am extending all the deadlines to the end of the year.
Even if a business hasn’t claimed from the furlough scheme, they can still claim from this new scheme regardless.
“We are starting work on a new, successor loan programme, set to begin in January,” he concluded.
