Rishi Sunak announces £1,000 bonus to stop redundancies and half price meals for dining out in £30bn package of emergency measures

The pain of balancing public finances as the recession caused by coronavirus was predicted to be the worst on record has been kicked down the road as Chancellor Rishi Sunak launched his plan to save jobs and pull the country back from the brink.

Mr Sunak unveiled a £30bn emergency package of measures today including a voucher scheme offering those who dine out between Monday and Wednesday 50 per cent off their food bill, and a cut in VAT to five per cent for the hospitality sector.

Mr Sunak announced a Job Retention Bonus will be introduced to help firms keep furloughed workers, where employers will receive a one-off bonus of £1,000 for each furloughed employee who is still employed as of January 31, 2021.

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A new £2bn Kickstart Scheme was also announced to create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people across the country.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak, right, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, in the Commons. Photo: PAChancellor Rishi Sunak, right, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, in the Commons. Photo: PA
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, right, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, in the Commons. Photo: PA

And a total of a total of £1.6 bn will be invested in employment support schemes, training and apprenticeships to help people looking for a job.

Some £8.8bn was committed to new infrastructure, decarbonisation and maintenance projects, in a bid to create more jobs.

And a cut to stamp duty until March was also announced.

Speaking in the Commons Mr Sunak said: “People are anxious about losing their jobs, about unemployment rising. We’re not just going to accept this.

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“People need to know we will do all we can to give everyone the opportunity of good and secure work. People need to know that although hardship lies ahead, no one will be left without hope.”

Mr Sunak said the plan is to “protect, support and create” jobs, adding: “Where problems emerge, we will confront them. Where support is justified, we will provide it. Where challenges arise, we will overcome them.

“We entered this crisis unencumbered by dogma and we continue in this spirit, driven always by the simple desire to do what is right.”

Mr Sunak said £49bn has been provided to public services since the coronavirus crisis began, and the task of balancing the public finances would come in a Budget in the autumn,

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He added to the Commons: “Analysis I’m publishing today shows our interventions significantly protected people’s incomes, with the least well off in society supported the most.

“And this crisis has highlighted the special bond which holds our country together.

“Millions of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been protected by the UK Government’s economic interventions – and they will be supported by today’s plan for jobs.

“No nationalist can ignore the undeniable truth: this help has only been possible because we are a United Kingdom.”

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But he said the UK economy “contracted by 25 per cent” in two months, adding in the Commons: “The same amount it grew in the previous 18 years.

“And the independent OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) and Bank of England are both projecting significant job losses – the most urgent challenge we now face.

“I want every person in this House and in the country to know that I will never accept unemployment as an unavoidable outcome.

“We haven’t done everything we have so far just to step back now and say, ‘job done’. In truth, the job has only just begun.”

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Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said Labour acknowledge that the Government has had to make big decisions.

Ms Dodds said: “Our country has been through a great deal over these past few months. Hundreds of thousands have wrestled with this terrible disease. For many months people have had to go without being able to embrace their loved ones even to say goodbye.

“Tens of thousands have died. Our NHS, social care and other workers have made extraordinary sacrifices, we owe them so much.

“The Government has had to take big decisions too, we acknowledge that, but today should have been the day when our Government chose to build a bridge between what has been done so far and what needs to be done to get out economy moving again.”

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She added that the Chancellor should have introduced a “back to work budget” and not a statement.

She said: “It should have been the day when the millions of British people worried about their jobs and future prospects had a load taken off of their shoulders.

“It should have been the day when we got the UK economy firing again.

“Today, Britain should have had a back to work budget, but instead we got this summer statement with many of the big decisions put off until later as the benches opposite know full well.”