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Summary
- The Covid-19 policies, which Sunak has introduced till date, are being questioned by Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds.
- The chancellor is expected to announce a new support package to protect the jobs in the forthcoming annual budget.
UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been fiercely attacked by the Labour Party on the way he is handling the economy during the pandemic. Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds has put across her views in her speech she delivered at the London School of Economics today.
Dodds has repeatedly accused Sunak of adopting wrong policies and measures during the coronavirus pandemic and setting up a false choice in front of the government between protecting public health and the economy.
(Image source: ©Kalkine Group 2020)
According to some extracts of her speech, Dodds said that treating the health of a nation and its economy as two different entities and the Conservative government has mishandled the crisis over the last 10 months.
She added that one should be either choosing health and imposing lockdown in the economy completely to prevent the spread of the virus or should choose saving the jobs and lift the restrictions.
Sunak has been forced to launch new support packages as the economic output of the nation has been displaying a slowdown across many critical sectors. Dodds said that much of this has emerged from the belief that the economy recovers only when all the restrictions are eased, and economic support are removed.
New support package
The £60 billion ($82 billion) furlough program that was announced by the government last year, which is paying for as much as 80 per cent of workers’ wages, is coming to an end in April. However, sources have said that Sunak is weighing other options to support jobs through the summer season. The support measure is expected to be announced by him in the budget day on 3 March. However, it all depends on how the pandemic evolves over the next six weeks, government sources said.
Government’s support
Dodds attacked Sunak when it is abuzz that he might be next in line after PM Boris Johnson. He has been applauded for the schemes he announced for a massive financial support to safeguard the British economy, soon after the first lockdown was announced. The popular schemes he has launched include the Furlough scheme, Eat Out to Help Out scheme, Stamp Duty Holiday, and others.
At the same time, he has recently come under pressure from some of his Tory MPs as well over his plans to withdraw some part of the ongoing support to rebuild the public finances, for example, the £20-a-week uplift in the Universal Credit scheme.
