Pressure mounts on Sunak to help self-employed with wage bailout

The British government was considering ways to extend its business bailout to include statutory self-employment pay, as pressure mounted to protect the five million workers currently excluded from the package.

MPs on Monday proposed an amendment to the Coronavirus Bill currently going through committee stage in parliament that would introduce a scheme similar to the so-called 'furlough' plan to protect up to 80% of company employees' wages.

With a lockdown imposed on Monday night to stop the spread of the coronavirus, many freelancers such as sports coaches and musicians, already facing hardship as work evaporates, were worrying about the prospect of incomes disappearing completely.

The Commons Public Bill Committee's amendment would give freelancers and the self-employed a guaranteed income of 80% of their monthly net earnings, averaged over the last three years; or £2,917 per month, whichever is lower.

Sunak's job retention scheme, unveiled last week would see grants from the tax office cover employees’ salaries up to £2,500 per month, backdated to 1 March. The self-employed were excluded and instead given access to £94 in weekly benefits and a delay in tax bills due in July.

However on Tuesday he appeared to be taking a more cautious line when addressing MPs in parliament.

“The issue is one of finding a way to target help at those, rather than having something that provides blanket cash subsidies to five million people, many of whom will not need it and will end up costing all of our constituents on modest incomes a considerable amount to pay,” he said.

“In terms of delivery, it is almost certainly going to be the case that we would have to build another brand new system to deliver any support.”

Sunak admitted that the political priority was the wage retention scheme which “should be delivered first and quickly...ideally by the end of April”.