Boris Johnson says austerity will not return to balance coronavirus books

In his first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions since recovering from the illness - and his first opposite new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer - Mr Johnson was pushed by Labour’s Mike Amesbury to not return to the “dark days of austerity” and instead help councils through the pandemic.

He said: “I can certainly tell him that the Government has absolutely no intention of returning to the A-word, which I won’t quote. That is not going to be our approach.”

Join our new coronavirus Facebook group for the latest confirmed news and advice as soon as we get it

The PM added: “We will continue to make sure funding gets through to those who need it but the crucial thing… is that the more effectively we can suppress this virus and the faster we can restart our economy, the better our chances of getting the funding that we all need to the poorest and neediest in our society.”

It comes amid reports Chancellor Rishi Sunak is considering his options on tapering off the Government’s furlough scheme which is supporting workers staying at home during the coronavirus outbreak after cost concerns.

The latest Government figures show 6.3m people are having up to 80 per cent of their salaries paid by the Treasury at a cost of £8bn.

The Times reported that Mr Sunak will announce plans next week on how to wind down the scheme from July, with options including cutting the subsidy level and lowering the £2,500 cap on monthly payments.

Mr Johnson confirmed he will also announce plans on the next stage of the lockdown on Sunday, and admitted contact tracing was stopped in mid-March as the transmission of coronavirus from individuals in the UK meant that “it exceeded our capacity”.

Sir Keir said: “Contract tracing was happening in the UK but it was abandoned in mid-March. We were told at the time that this was because it was quote ‘not an appropriate mechanism’ but yesterday the deputy chief medical officer said it was to do with testing capacity. So can the Prime Minister just clarify the position for us?”

Mr Johnson replied: “As I think is readily apparent Mr Speaker to everybody who studied the situation and I think as the scientists would confirm, the difficulty in mid-March was that the tracing capacity that we had, that had been useful as he rightly says in the containment phase of the epidemic, that capacity was no longer useful or relevant since the transmission from individuals within the UK meant that it exceeded our capacity then.

“Now the value of the testing, tracking and tracing operation that we’re setting up now is that as we come out of the epidemic and as we get the new cases down, we will have a team that will genuinely be able to track and trace hundreds of thousands of people across the country and thereby to drive down the epidemic.”

-------------------------------

Editor’s note: First and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor