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Thursday, November 5, 2020

Covid: Furlough extension prompts delay apology call in Wales - BBC News

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The chancellor's announcement that the furlough job support scheme will be extended until March has been welcomed in Wales amid complaints it should have come sooner.

He told the Commons that UK ministers will review the policy in January.

Wales' Economy Minister Ken Skates said the Welsh Government had been calling "for some time" for furlough to be extended.

The availability of funding for businesses and staff who cannot work during Wales' current 17-day firebreak lockdown has caused a row between the Welsh and UK governments.

A less generous Job Support Scheme had been due to come into effect on 1 November, until the original Job Retention Scheme, known as furlough, was extended until December to cover the four-week lockdown which began in England on Thursday.

Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford said it was not fair that the Treasury waited until England's lockdown was announced to extend furlough throughout the UK.

As part of the revised scheme, now extended to the end of March, anyone made redundant after 23 September can be rehired and put back on furlough.

This includes anyone laid off by a Welsh firm during the Wales-wide firebreak which began on 23 October, a week before the scheme was originally due to end.

Speaking at a Welsh Government coronavirus briefing, Mr Skates said there was a "necessity to support people for as long as it takes to get through the pandemic, so I would welcome the chancellor's announcement today".

"Of course I'll be digesting the detail of the announcement and implications for Wales, but... the greatest risk to the economy, to our wellbeing, our economic wellbeing, is in doing too little and too late."

Chancellor Rishi Sunak
PA

Reacting to the announcement in the Commons, Pontypridd Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones claimed businesses in Wales had suffered because UK ministers had "blocked" Welsh ministers from using key job support schemes during the current lockdown in Wales.

Mr Sunak responded that "10,000 of her constituents" had had their jobs supported by the UK government furlough scheme.

Plaid Cymru's Treasury spokesperson, Ben Lake MP, welcomed the extension of furlough, but said the chancellor should have apologised for the "uncertainty that his initial refusal, and subsequent U-turn, had caused households and businesses".

Arguments about the availability of furlough support during lockdowns not including England had been fuelled by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday when he told Parliament: "If other parts of the UK decide to go into measures which require the furlough scheme then of course that is available to them - that applies not just now but in the future."

On Thursday, Mr Sunak said: "The furlough scheme was designed and delivered by the government of the United Kingdom on behalf of all the people of the United Kingdom - wherever they live.

"That has been the case since March; it is the case now; and it will remain the case until next March."

The chancellor also confirmed the Welsh Government will be receiving £600m more funding as a result of additional spending in England - bringing the total during the pandemic to £5bn.

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November 05, 2020 at 11:39PM
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-54824601

Covid: Furlough extension prompts delay apology call in Wales - BBC News

https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

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