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UK Government daily briefing summary
richardscamans • Mar 22, 2020
A further press conference on COVID-19.
UK Government daily briefing summary
The Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer today gave a further
press conference on COVID-19. Today’s measures focus on positive
employee/individual support and strengthen the tone on social
distancing, including the closure of pubs and restaurants.
Strengthening the guidance issued on Monday, and following agreement
from all devolved administrations, the Government is ‘telling’ pubs,
bars, restaurants, nightclubs and cafes to close to the public, although
they can continue to provide take-out services and delivery; this
includes takeaway coffees, sandwiches, etc collected from a shop or
restaurant. Theatres and gyms will also be told to close. We are
working to understand the implications for hotels with guests, both long
term and current stay but our understanding is that providing the space
is not open to the public and bars and restaurants are not in full use,
there are no plans to require full closure at this stage.
The Chancellor announced further measures on employee protection:
Stepping in to pay people’s wages with a new scheme. A grant
from HMRC will be made available to cover 80% of wages per person up to
£2,500 for those employees kept on the payroll when their business is
closed or who would otherwise lose their jobs due to COVID19 challenge
within their business. These workers will be put in furlough to identify
them as jobs that would otherwise be lost and will be paid accordingly.
The system and process for paying the grant has not yet been confirmed
and is unlikely to be made available until end of April, however the
grant will be backdated to 1 March, applicable to those who were on
payroll as at 28th February and open for three months (may be extended).
In the Q&A the Chancellor stated that the scheme will cover everyone on
PAYE (incl zero-hours contracts). No details on process, what payment
covers and mechanism for reimbursement are yet available.
Corona Virus Business Interruption Scheme – loans for companies
with a turnover of less than £41m will be interest free for 12 months.
Available from Monday – available through high street lenders.
Cash flow support via the tax system. Deferring next quarter of
VAT payments. No business will pay VAT from now until the end of June.
The payments will not be due until the end of the financial year.
New national advertising campaign to communicate business
support. Chancellor calls for people to consider the support carefully
before laying people off.
Gig economy, contracters and self employed - Increasing the
Universal Credit standard allowance by £1,000 a year. Working tax credit
basic element will also increase by £1k; suspending the minimum income
floor for everyone impacted, allowing the self-employed to access
Universal Credit up to the level of statutory sick pay.
Deferment of next self-assessment payments until January 2021.
There is a concern around the cashflow challenges still arising from
operating sites with no income and continuing to pay staff until the
grant payment is made, but we are working urgently with government on
speedy access to loans announced by the Chancellor last week, the
majority of which will be made available through high street and other
lenders and ensuring that they are equipped to process applications on
Monday. Given that support has now been provided to the whole supply
chain, there is also now urgent need for landlords to follow the
Chancellor’s lead and defer quarter rent payments to the end of the
year. The details of the package are available here. Further details
will be published on Gov.uk shortly and made available on our website.
The devil will clearly be in the detail on this and we are working at
pace to get full guidance from government on both the closure
requirements – the impact on hotels and privately owned caravans on
holiday parks; security for locked up premises in town centres;
management of stock and duty drawback - and the employee protection
package – is it tax free; obligation for top up; non salary benefits and
payments; treatment of workers currently in lay off period.
We are now working with No 10, BEIS and DCMS to triage urgent requests
and queries from companies and so therefore people are asked to collate
their queries and direct them to info@ukhospitality.org.uk. There is
also now a new 5 strong team in BEIS looking at domestic hospitality and
in particular pubs and restaurants.
Situation update: correct as of 17.00, 20 March 2020
Health Update
As of 09:00 20 March 2020, a total of 66,976 people have been
tested: 3,983 confirmed as positive and there are 177 confirmed COVID-19
related deaths in the UK.
As of 09:00 20 March, of the total of cases which tested positive
for COVID-19 in the UK 3,384 were in England, 322 in Scotland, 191 in
Wales, and 86 in Northern Ireland.
To see the number of cases of COVID-19 in England and the UK visit
the Public Health England dashboard.
As of 20 March globally there has been 234,802 cases including:
China 80,967, Italy 41,035, Republic of Korea 8,652, Iran 17,361, France
10,871, Germany 10,999, Spain 17,147, Japan 950, USA 10,442, UK 3,983,
Switzerland 3,888, Netherlands 2,460, with 9,598 fatalities.
A total of 6,350 fatalities have occurred outside of Mainland China,
in 60 countries.
The World Health Organisation has a global map that reports daily on
the global cases.
Latest Government advice and links
Further details about the Small Business Grant Scheme and the Retail
and Hospitality Grant Scheme have been published on Gov.uk
today on the
COVID-19 support for businesses page
The Treasury has published guidance for Local Authorities on the
Expanded Retail Discount 2020/21: Coronavirus Response, which sets out
in more detail what is meant by 'leisure, hospitality and retail' when
referring to the business rate holiday and other schemes
The ‘Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme’ announced in the
2020 Budget on 11 March has been brought forward, the new scheme is
expected to become available in week commencing 23 March 2020.
The UK Government has published updated educational provision
advice, including a list of key workers.
The online sick note system has launched on Gov.uk
Updated guidance on what to do if you have a suspected case of
COVID-19 in your household has been published by the UK Government.
The UK Government has published a summary of impacts relating to the
Coronavirus Bill.
Following the UK Government’s announcement of increased measures to
delay transmission, further guidance on social distancing has been
published
Other travel measures, advice and updates
The UK Government has announced that it has worked with rail
operators to agree a reduction in rail service levels to help tackle the
spread of COVID-19. Rail services will be reduced from Monday 23 March
and kept under review.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) and SilkAir have announced that they have
adjusted services in response to COVID-19 and are suspending additional
services across their network. To date, the suspensions mean that SIA
will operate only 50% of the capacity that had been originally scheduled
up to the end of April 2020.
Cathay Pacific: Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon have stated that
they are to reduce capacity by 96% across their passenger network in
April and May in light of the severe drop in demand due to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic. The airlines have also updated their refund and
rebooking guidelines for all tickets issued before March 17 2020.
Jet2.com – has announced that it is preparing to suspend its entire
flying programme until at least 1 May. It also stated during the past
week it had conducted an extensive repatriation programme to bring its
customers safely home.
In India, the Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announce that from
this midnight on 20 March, all workplaces will remain closed till 31st
March. This is applicable in Mumbai, MMR Region, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad
and Nagpur.
The Vietnam Government has announced that all incoming travellers
will be required to enter centralised quarantine from 21 March
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