Name: Coronavirus: UK government unveils aid for self-employed ? - BBC
Uploaded: 2020-03-27T20:31:36.000Z
Duration: 39 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

endemic with new support for the self employed.

The comparative

Our step by step action plan is aiming to slow the spread of Corona virus so fewer people need hospital treatment at any one time.

Gerund

Protecting the N H s is ability to cope at every point.

We have followed expert advice to be controlled in our actions, taking the right measures at the right time.

We are taking unprecedented action to increase N HS capacity by increasing the number of beds, key staff and lifesaving equipment on the front line to give people the care they need.

That is why it is absolutely critical that people follow our instructions to stay at home so that we can protect the N hs and save lives.

Our action plan to beat this pandemic is the right thing to do.

But we know that people are worrying about their jobs and their incomes.

Working closely with businesses and trade unions, we have put together a coherent, coordinated and comprehensive economic plan, a plan which is already starting to make a difference.

Big employers like Bru Dog, Timpson Tze and Prepped have already said that our Corona virus jobs retention scheme means they will protect thousands of jobs on we're Publishing this evening detailed guidance on how the scheme will operate so that other businesses can protect jobs too.

Small businesses are already benefiting from the Corona virus business interruption loans of up to £5 million which interest free for 12 months with 30,000 enquiries in just four days.

Local authorities are already in forming over 700,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses that they will pay no business rates this year.

And the new hardship grand scheme providing cash grants of up to £25,000 for the smallest businesses is now up and running.

So with any business is struggling and worrying, they may need to lose staff.

I would urge you to log on to business support dot gov dot UK and look very carefully at what support is available before deciding to lay people off.

I'm proud of what we've done so far, but I know that many self employed people are deeply anxious about the support available for them.

Musicians and sound engineers, plumbers and electricians, taxi drivers and driving instructors, hairdressers and child minders and many others through no fault of their own risk losing their livelihoods to you.

So to support those who work for themselves.

Today I'm announcing a new self employed income support scheme.

The government will pay self employed people who have been adversely affected by the Corona virus a taxable grant worth 80% of their average monthly profits over the last three years up to £2500 a month.

This scheme will be open to people across the UK for at least three months and I will extend it for longer.

You'll be able to claim these grants and continue to do business.

And we're covering the same amount of income for a self employed person as we are for furloughed employees who also receive a grand worth 80% that's unlike almost any other country and makes our scheme one of the most generous in the world.

Providing such unprecedented support for self employed people has been difficult to do in practice.

On the self employed are a diverse population with some people earning significant profits.

So I've taken steps to make this scheme deliverable and fair to make sure that the scheme provides targeted support for those most in need.

It will be open to anyone with trading profits of up to £50,000 to make sure only the genuinely self employed benefit.

It will be available to people who make the majority of their income from self employment and to minimize fraud.

Only those who are already in self employment, who have a tax return for 2019 will be able to apply.

95% of people who are majority self employed will benefit from this scheme.

HMRC are working on this urgently and expect people to be able to access the scheme no later than the beginning of June.

If you're eligible, HMRC will contact you directly, ask you to fill out a simple online form, then pay the grant straight into your bank account and to make sure no one who needs it misses out on support.

We have decided to allow anyone who missed the filing deadline in January 4 weeks from today to submit their tax return.

But I know many self employed people are struggling right now, so we've made sure that support is available.

Self employed people can access the business interruption loans.

Self assessment income tax payments that were due in July could be deferred to the end of January next year, and we've also changed the welfare system so that self employed people can now access universal credit in full.

A self employed person with a non working partner and two Children living in the social rented sector can receive welfare support of up to £1800 a month.

It is targeted at those who need it the most and crucially, it is deliverable and it provides an unprecedented level of support for self employed people.

As we've developed the scheme, I'm grateful for the conversations I've had with the Federation of Small Businesses, the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed, and a range of trade unions, including the Trades Union Congress.

But I must be honest and point out that in devising this scheme in response to many calls for support, it is now much harder to justify the inconsistent contributions between people of different employment.

Status is if we all want to benefit equally from state support, we must all pay in equally in future.

These last 10 days have shaken our country and economy as never before.

In the last two weeks, we have put aside ideology and orthodoxy to mobilize the full power and resource is of the British state.

We have done so in the pursuit of a single goal.

To protect people's health and economic security by supporting public service is like the air in a chess backing businesses and protecting people's jobs and incomes.

What we have done will, I believe, stand as one of the most significant economic interventions at any point in the history of the British state on by any government anywhere in the world.

We have pledged that whatever the resources, the n hs needs it.

Who got promise to pay 80% of the wages of furloughed workers for three months up to £2500 differed more than £30 billion of tax payments until the end of the year, agreed nearly 17,000 time to pay arrangements for businesses and individuals.

Made available £333 billion of loans and guarantees, introduced cash grants of up to £25,000 for small business properties covered the cost of statutory sick pay for small and medium sized businesses for up to two weeks per employee.

Lifted the incomes of over four million households with a nearly £7 billion boost to our welfare system.

Agreed a three month mortgage holiday with lenders and nearly a £1,000,000,000 more support for renters through the local housing allowance.

And today we've announced one of the most generous self employed support schemes anywhere in the world.

Despite these extraordinary steps, there will be challenging times ahead.

We will not be able to protect every single job or save every single business.

But I am confident that the measures we have put in place will support millions of families, businesses and self employed people.

To get through this, get through it together and emerge on the other side both stronger and more united.

I think if we can take some questions from the media turning first too.

Laura Kuhns Berg from the BBC Thank you very much, Chancellor.

You said you hoped to cover nearly all of the self employed.

But what about people who this skin does not cover?

And when do you hope the money will start coming through.

And if I may, we've been really inundated with worries from people who feel they're not safe at work.

We had a message from someone saying their employer was forcing people.

Everyone knows it's wrong that we're being emotionally blackmailed by bosses, saying If we don't come to work, people will lose their jobs as the chancellor, Would you say to employers who are float, floating the rules like that and to the deputy CM Oh, if I may?

When do you now expect the peak of the virus to be from the most up to date information you have, Please, Thanks, Laura, to your first question at this scheme.

If you look at people who make the majority of their earnings from self employment, this scheme will cover 95% of them off the people that it does not cover that last 5%.

Those above the income threshold that we set their average incomes are about £200,000.

So we think what we have done is reasonable, proportionate and fair and, as I said, covers 95% of all self employed people who make the majority of their earnings from self employment.

It is a very generous scheme in that regard and treats them with the same parity that we did for employed in terms of the timing.

Our expectation is that this will be up and running by the beginning of June.

We will look to try and do it faster than that.

But I don't want to promise something that we can't deliver today.

As I've said before, this is operationally complicated.

We're already designing brand new schemes to cover the 90% of the population that are employed here.

We need to design another scheme on top of that, and we also want to give now four weeks for people who haven't filed their tax return yet from January on opportunity to do so to benefit from this scheme.

And I think that was a trade off that was worth making, giving people that little bit of extra time now those late filers.

But that does have a little bit of a knock on impact about when the scheme could be fully up and running on.

I'll turn toe to Jenny to answer your second question around workplace guidance on DDE and the virus timing.

So I think on the workplace guidance, it's really important that employers, most of whom have been extraordinarily supportive, I think of their employees stick to the normal principles of workplace health.

I think, what those principles are of people can work from home.

They should be able to if they can't, they're maybe adaptations that they can do in the workplace on.

We've also made it clear what sorts of distances and practical measures can be made to ensure people are safe.

So in some ways, although we're being more specific about the public health requirements in the middle of this outbreak, actually the same principles about workplace safety apply on Dino.

The health and Safety executive were reminding workplaces off that today, earlier on the issue off the peak in the epidemic.

I'm sure you will not be surprised to know that I am not going to predict too precise timing for that.

And the reason for that is we are only just starting to see a bite, if you like.

In the interventions and social distancing that have been put into place, it would be far too early to predict that.

I think we are starting to see some helpful movement.

And what we'll be looking for is a change in the slope rather than being a very steep curve.

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Coronavirus: UK government unveils aid for self-employed ? - BBC

vulnerable

absolutely

significant

mental