The £500 self-isolation payment for poor workers with Covid could end in weeks as the legal requirement to quarantine is scrapped.
The Test and Trace Support Payment was introduced in September 2020 to help low-wage workers afford to self-isolate for up to 14 days.
But Boris Johnson today announced he plans to end all domestic legal restrictions in England on February 24, a month earlier than planned.
That means for the first time in almost two years, England will have no legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive for Covid-19.
The announcement has raised questions over the future of the £500 payment, available to low-income people who are given legal orders to isolate.
While isolation will not be a legal requirement, Downing Street said today: “We’d expect anyone with an infectious disease to take steps not to spread that disease further - a colleague at work with flu, for example."
It is understood no final decisions have been made over the future of the £500 payment, and its future will be considered by the government next week.
Boris Johnson will then announce a full ‘living with Covid’ plan and document on Monday 21 February, which is expected to confirm details.
The document could also set a timetable for the end of free lateral flow tests, which will carry on beyond the February 24 cut-off date.
And it is likely to make a statement on the future of the multi-billion pound contact tracing system, which was largely outsourced to private firms.
Mr Johnson said: “It is my intention to return on the first day after the half term recess to present our strategy for living with Covid.
“Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we’ll be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive, a full month early.”
The legal change will also end powers which councils had under the Coronavirus Act in England to close some venues. However, these powers were barely ever used.
Mandatory self-isolation was already scrapped last year for close contacts of Covid cases.
However, people who test positive for the virus must still go into self-isolation for five full days in England, a period that has been repeatedly cut from 10 days and seven days.
Unions blasted the decision, saying it would leave low-income workers and schools high and dry - while Covid bereaved families blasted the PM when 314 people died in the last 24 hours.
UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Everybody wants to get back to normal, but Covid risks haven’t disappeared. This is going too far, way too soon.
“Infections are still rife in schools. Large numbers of pupils and staff are off. Allowing a premature return could lead to a further jump in infections and disrupt learning for thousands more.”
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “It’s also vital that ministers fix our broken sick pay system once and for all. Workers who are laid low by Covid must be able to make ends meet – not pushed into financial hardship.
“It beggars belief that millions still don’t have access to decent sick pay.”
Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London and a member of New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, said he would be "very reluctant" to say that the pandemic was in any way over.”
Lobby Akinnola, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: "The Prime Minister might wish that this disease was no more dangerous than the flu, but the reality is that he is throwing the most vulnerable in our society to the wolves.”
