Chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to unveil a multi-billion pound package of support for self-employed workers, amid growing anger that they are being forced to keep working during the coronavirus crisis or rely on benefits.
The self-employed are the largest group of workers excluded from Treasury emergency measures to shore up jobs and wages during the crisis, which include a guarantee to pay up to 80 per cent of the wages of staff members who might otherwise be laid off.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank has calculated a similar scheme for the self-employed could cost Mr Sunak £3.6bn over three months, with up to one-third of the UK’s five million self-employed having to stop work to avoid social contact or look after children sent home from school.
Boris Johnson is coming under intense pressure to provide generous support for the self-employed and freelancers, after Jeremy Corbyn warned him that construction workers were continuing to take the train to sites despite knowing they are infected with coronavirus.
At the last prime minister’s questions before the House of Commons broke up early for Easter, Mr Corbyn told Mr Johnson that NHS workers were being put at risk because the self-employed could not afford to follow the official advice to stay home, because they have nothing but Universal Credit to fall back on if their income stops. The Labour leader called for building sites to be shut down immediately unless they were doing emergency work.
At a later press conference in 10 Downing Street, Mr Johnson confirmed that the chancellor’s package of support would be unveiled on Thursday.
He said the government had put together “an unprecedented programme of support not just for businesses but for workers of all kinds across the country”, adding: “We will do whatever we can to support the self-employed, just as we are putting our arms around every single employed person in this country.”
The announcement of support for the self-employed had been delayed because the complexity of their working arrangements, compared to staff members taxed through the PAYE system, made it harder to come up with “the right tailored programme”, the prime minister said.
Mr Sunak’s package comes after a string of NHS staff complained of being forced to travel in overcrowded London Underground trains to hospitals in the capital because so many non-emergency workers were continuing to commute into the city, putting them at risk of becoming infected with coronavirus.
The mayors of London and Manchester, and leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all joined calls for a halt to non-essential building work.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said: “It remains the case that too many of the people using [Transport for London] services at the busiest times work in construction. The idea that construction workers can stay two metres apart during the course of a busy day, but also the idea we can’t put on hold certain construction work in light of this public health crisis, I find astonishing.”
But communities secretary Robert Jenrick insisted it was “sensible” for construction work to continue if “safe to do so” and if employers follow Public Health England’s social distancing guidance.
And the PM resisted calls to order builders to down tools, telling the Commons: “What we are not doing is closing down the whole UK economy.”
Making his final appearance at the despatch box as Labour leader, Mr Corbyn told MPs: “Construction sites are still operating on non-emergency work despite the new rules.
“We heard this morning on the radio a call from a self-employed construction worker who said he had contracted coronavirus, he was suffering from it and knew he had got it but had no other option but to get on the London Tube and go onto a site to work, obviously putting himself at greater risk and putting all other passengers and all other workers on that site at risk.
“Why was he doing it? Because the site had not been closed down and he had no other source of income to feed his family, so he’s going to work putting all of us more at risk as a result.”
Industry representatives are understood to have demanded further “clarity” from the government, raising concerns that current measures are risking the lives of employees and those they may come into contact with.
One site worker, an electrician in east London who gave his name as Nelson, told Radio 4’s Today he decided to stop working for fear he could be spreading Covid-19.
“People know of people who are now in hospital and they’ve caught it on site,” he said.
“There seems to be a lot of continued lack of distancing taking place and obviously the cross-contamination is rife. Personally, I need to be earning money, otherwise in a month I’m going to feel the pinch.”
Mr Corbyn called on the prime minister to give “unequivocal guidance” now that construction work on non-emergency jobs should stop immediately.
Mr Johnson responded: “Everybody should work at home unless they must go to work, unless they have no alternative and can’t do that work from home.”
But he added: “If a construction company is continuing, then clearly they should do so in accordance with the guidance of Public Health England and they have a duty of care to their employees.”
Speaking later, the prime minister insisted that the country would get through the coronavirus crisis.
“When you look at the sheer scale of what the government is doing to get this country through, we will cope – and we are coping – very well indeed under the most challenging possible circumstances,” he said.
“But the most important thing to enable us to get through it well together and to come out well... is that we all follow the instructions that the government has given. Stay at home, protect the NHS, and that’s the way to save lives.”
