Furlough was the minimum they had to do

[Justkeepswiimming]

I hear this being touted around by Tory politicians. And with distance it's perhaps easy to forget. But furlough was the absolute minimum they HAD to do to prop up an economy they had told to stay at home. They DID NOT do this out of the kindness of their hearts like they are trying to say. Consider what would have happened to the economy had they not. And they were not unique in the decision they made, most governments had to offer something similar.

However it's important to remember how poorly the scheme was managed. Fraud was enormous under this scheme. So to use this scheme as an attempt to show how fantastic they are is so misleading. They had to do something to keep the economy moving.

Many thanks and fair enough

Sadly, even if another lot get in - the only difference is that a different group of people will get hit much harder, ie those with some saving of decent amounts, on avg wages, own their own property/mortgage and possibly a BTL for their pensions so they don't have to depend on benefits

Worryingly, our nuclear deterrent is at risk with the alternatives
The bottom line, they are basically the same, IE in it for themselves, IMO

@LumiB they didn't need to give it to everyone, they should have investigated people working while on furlough. You know the way they do with people on benefits. After the event, they should have set about prosecuting and recouping money from those who fraudulently claimed. No hindsight needed we all watched it in plain sight.

Our nuclear deterent isn't under threat from Labour. That is a lie.

@frankentall, Exactly previous earnings and verified accounts. Anyone who had those got given several chunks of grant money over 2 years that did not have to be paid back. My BiL was self employed with many years accounts filed. They showed he earned between £50-60k each year and paid tax on this money. Why didn't you or 3 others you know have at least 1 year of verified accounts filed showing you paying income tax on the amount earned? If you had you'd have got the grants.

Over 3 million self employed and freelancers etc were excluded from the covid support schemes. That's a whopping 10% of the workforce!

What about the ones who'd only started in the year before Covid?

What about those earning £50,001 who got nothing whilst those earning £49,999 got around £36k!

What about those whose self employment income was less than 50% of their total income the year ending before covid, i.e. if they stopped employment and started their own business mid year, or had received a pension lump sum which they used to finance a business start up?

What about freelancers or casual workers whose employers simply refused to put them on the furlough scheme?

VolvoFan · Yesterday 15:14
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Wouldn't need such a stupid scheme if lockdowns weren't instituted. You can't shut down and respool the economy over and over without damage. It was a stupid, insane and criminal thing to do”

It was a complete unknown. There was little choice. Have you forgotten what a terrifying time it was?

Lots of other countries had furlough/wage support - US, Canada, Australia, NZ, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Sweden … (this includes all of the G7) … Sure they varied, but so did countries’ covid response and their existing forms of income support. The UK wasn’t even leading the pack in this area. It’s clutching at straws for Sunak to claim credit but what does he cling to as his legacy if not this? https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/coronavirus-how-countries-supported-wages-during-pandemic

Furlough payments was widespread throughout countries, its easy enough to google the details. Some countries even paid it over a longer period of time so it’s difficult to work out which was the most generous. It didn’t affect our family as we all do essential jobs.

You've caught him/her out, lol

All of my accounts, personal tax returns and companies house submissions were 100% legal and up to date. Nothing was available to me except a bounce back loan which I didn't take as there was no realistic prospect of paying it back.You are showing a degree of ignorance about different types of self employment.

Incorrect, you are showing your ignorance, which is far from unusual given all the lies and nonsense you have posted lately.

This a a link to a good article on the MSE website outlining the gaps in support and the varying reasons why over 3 million workers were excluded from the covid support schemes.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/06/mps-call-on-government-to-help-those-excluded-by-coronavirus-sup/

To my knowledge most countries did including Greece?

Exactly, a lot of ignorance about self employment is on display in this thread

This is a silly argument and I am afraid typical of the hypocrisy shown by people in echo chambers.
Ask yourself this @Justkeepswiimming: If Labour had been in government during the pandemic and had to make decisions without the benefit of hindsight, can you honestly say that you would accept that furlough was the least Rachel Reeves could do? That it was done grudgingly and was not worth mentioning because every county did it (even though they didn't)?
I imagine the more likely scenario was the echo chambers would be patting themselves on the back at how generous Labour had been and how the Tories would never have done it.
Think about it. You need an open mind to the strengths and weaknesses of all parties if you want an intelligent debate. Getting all het up about how awful the Tories are with other like-minded people is not an intelligent debate.

Absolutely - in the end it was all repaid through the businesses profits. They never told businesses it would need to be repaid. A lot of companies tried to take advantage and ended up having to pay it all back (which served them right I suppose)

What on Earth are you talking about? Only a tiny minority of fraudulent claims were discovered and had to be paid back. For the vast majority, the support grants were paid and no repayment was necessary.

No, if Labour had done exactly the same thing they would have been castigated for wasting taxpayers' money and bankrupting future generations. That's the way our Press works. To be fair, some on the Left would have said the Tories would never have done it, and many of us would probably have assumed that was true. I was very impressed that it was done - I didn't need support myself as my employer kept us on at full wage, bless 'em, but it was so obviously the right and necessary thing to do in my view.

But then they did the Eat Out crap, the school and employment Hokey Cokey, weird zone restrictions (dunno what someone was on when they designed that, it was like a game of Port and Starboard at primary school), never followed up on the fraud, overpayments, support gaps, PPE contracts to random bods instead of trusted suppliers, and that's before we even realised how awfully they'd handled non-financial decisions like the care homes policy and that the bastards were having a jolly good boozy sociable working life (discounting the disputed term "partying" and regardless of who ate the cake) while the rest of us couldn't see our own families for months.

So yeah, furlough wanted doing. And when they first brought it out it was in a rush because people needed money right then and there, fair enough. But it could have been tweaked and improved as time went on, and it just wasn't. There is NO WAY a Labour government would have been cut more slack for that level of incompetence, carelessness, dishonesty and venality. I'm not saying it wouldn't have done so badly, but it would have been torn to shreds if it had, and rightly so.

A few hospitality businesses I know say they had to pay back furlough from their profits.

Then their claims must have been fraudulent or contained errors. Or they're just lying to you?

It's all to do with the timing of when sole trader self assessment returns have to be done.
My husband filed his first year returns for 2018/19 in January 2020. it was his first year trading, most of our savings had been sunk into the business and there was very little profit to pay tax on.
He, like thousands of others in the same position wasn't entitled to any help.

Furlough was a good example of socialism in action. I detest the Tories, but I think they did get that right. There were obvious flaws but given the circumstances I don’t think they could have done anything differently. (Things like people still getting furlough when they had £££s in savings - a person couldn’t claim UC with tens of thousands in the bank. Also my then 16yr old DD who worked pt in a restaurant got furlough. She didn’t need it, she used to call it “my pocket money from Uncle Rishi”)

The upshot is that we’re left with a bill of £70B to pay for it. That’s fair enough but when people who happily took the furlough ‘benefits’ are now whinging about potential tax rises, it does make me angry. If you don’t want to live in a developing country, you’ve got to pay for it.

@Anonym00se I agree with your post. There were flaws no doubt but that what happens when major scheme has to be rolled out in an emergency situation.
To carp now about it and dismiss it as nothing special just because is was implemented by the Tories is ridiculous. It's such a shame that some MN posters cannot or will not even grudgingly accept the Tories may haver got a few things right. To display such hypocrisy as the OP is amazing really.

Yup. After being part of the excluded group, Sunak can utterly fuck off if he thinks he'll ever get my vote.

He literally told anyone who was freelance or self employed that we didn't deserve help. Rather than trying to organise support at a later date, he just quibbled over the number of people excluded.