Over 1m ‘locked out’ of coronavirus income support schemes, MPs warn
The government must extend its coronavirus income support measures to cover over a million people who have “fallen through the gaps” in the schemes, MPs said.
In a report published this morning, the influential Treasury Select Committee (TSC) said large numbers of people were suffering financial hardship because they are unable to benefit from the government’s support package for workers and the self-employed.
TSC chair Mel Stride said that while chancellor Rishi Sunak had acted with “impressive scale and pace” in response to the coronavirus pandemic, he must extend support to those not covered by its job support packages.
People who started jobs after a cut-off date in March for the state’s wage subsidy scheme or who set up a company in the last year should not be excluded from the support package, the Committee said.
Self-employed people who earn more than a threshold set by the government, freelancers in industries such as theatre and television and directors of companies who pay themselves in dividends should also be covered by the income support measures, they said.
“The Committee has identified well over a million people who – through no fault of their own – have lost livelihoods while being locked down and locked out of the main support programmes,” said Stride.
“If it is to be fair and completely fulfil its promise of doing whatever it takes, the Government should urgently enact our recommendations to help those who have fallen through the gaps.”
Nearly nine million jobs are covered by the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which pays temporarily furloughed workers 80 per cent of their salary, capped at £2,500 a month. A separate scheme for self-employed people has received 2.6 million claims.
Britain’s budget forecasters have estimated that the two programmes will cost nearly £70bn this year, more than the entire government borrowing in the last financial year.