Firms Told To Pay Part Of Furlough As Rishi Battles To Get UK Moving

Rishi Sunak will spearhead a “collective effort to reopen the country” now that lockdown restrictions are easing.

- Sam Lister

The Chancellor has laid out plans to relieve the coronavirus burden on taxpayers as Britain slowly returns to work.

Among the changes are employers contributing to the wages of furloughed staff from August onwards.

Mr. Sunak set out a sliding scale that starts with modest changes making employers cover pensions and national insurance contributions.

As the job retention scheme is wound down, they will start to pay some of the wage bill, hitting 20 per cent of the cost before it closes.

Extra help is also being given to the self-employed but at a lower rate than payroll staff.

Mr. Sunak said: “As Britain returns to work we need to adapt the emergency programmes we put in place to bridge through the crisis.

Develop

“Our thoughts, our energies, our resources must turn to looking forward to planning for the recovery and we will need the dynamism of our whole economy as we fight our way back to prosperity.

“Not everything will look the same as before. It won’t be the case that we can simply put the key in the lock, open the door, and step into the world as it was in January.

“We will develop new measures to grow the economy, to back business, to boost skills, and to help people thrive in the new postCovid world.