Chancellor Rishi Sunak has extended the furlough scheme until the end of March.
It will continue under the current rules, with the scheme paying up to 80 per cent of an employee’s wages up to £2,500 a month. The government will next review the scheme in January - no details were given by Sunak as to whether that might be an opportunity to change the payments or extend the scheme further.
Sunak told the House of Commons yesterday that his intention was "to give businesses security through the winter” and extend “the security we are providing will protect millions of jobs.”
So far £40 billion has been spent on furlough - formally called the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme - since March this year.
It was originally intended to end in May and then October.
Many estate agencies and industry suppliers - including relatively well-funded portals - have taken advantage of the scheme, although Rightmove and some agencies, including Knight Frank, say they are returning some or all of the funds.
HM Revenue and Customs, which administers the scheme, says it believes as much as 10 per cent of the money delivered up to August may have been claimed by companies fraudulently or in error.
You can see the Chancellor's full announcement here.
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No mention that he has postponed (cancelled) the £1000 per employee that we were promised in January for every employee that was still in employment after being furloughed.
After the government had to come under immense pressure to extend furlough by one month and only because of a new lockdown, this sudden, unexpected uniltateral extension that has taken everyone by surprise should tell us all we need to know about how the government expects the second wave/lockdowns to play out over the next 4.5 months and the BofE forecasts for the economy, they just don't want to give us the bad news just yet. If they really believe the rose tinted version they chug out on the 10oclock news about R dropping, it's only 28 days etc etc, they wouldn't have done this with the deficit as it is. Buckle up.
Of course it will help business's over the winter and agree that this virus is likely to be with us causing mayhem untill at least next spring. After the millions in tax that my company has paid in over the years, its nice to see a bit coming back.
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