Furlough but expected to provide emergency response?

[IndecentFeminist]

My BiL works for a small one man band type contractor. All the routine, pre-planned work has been cancelled especially with restaurants shutting etc, the only work that is likely to come in is emergency response. Think shutting off a stopcock in a house flood type scenario. There may not be any of these for the next few months.

Can he be furloughed in this scenario? He'd rather that than lose his job obviously, but I'm assuming he can't be furloughed but expected to provide this emergency cover, even if he wasn't paid for it?

No, being furloughed is where the job would otherwise be made redundant - not required at all. You cannot receive furlough funds and still work.

Would it be the case that if he was called in, he would be removed from the furlough list and be paid in full instead?

I have no idea, I'll ask him. The calling in would be for an hour say each time...and may not even happen sadly. Just the nature of the work. He's just trying to figure out how it works for when he talks to the boss, to see if anything can be salvaged.

He could reduce his hours to minimum in order to provide call out cover, but his wage would drop too likely by a lot more than the 80% furlough, and the furlough funds come from the government, how cash healthy is the company to continue paying salary with little to no income?

His likely best option is to be fully furloughed. Everyone is protected that way.