Coronavirus diary, Day 104

  • Today, the Chancellor announced our Plan for Jobs, worth up to £30 billion – to support people to find jobs, create new jobs through investment, and finally protect jobs by revitalising the hard-hit sectors upon which many jobs depend. We have announced a range of measures – on top of the £160 billion plan to protect people’s jobs, incomes and businesses – to support, create and protect jobs. This includes:
    • Rewarding and incentivising employers who successfully bring furloughed staff back through a new Jobs Retention Bonus Scheme.
    • Temporarily cutting VAT for the tourism and hospitality sectors, giving a much-needed boost to some of the industries hardest hit by coronavirus.
    • Launching a new Eat Out to Help Out scheme, giving people up to 50 per cent off meals out, encouraging them back into restaurants, cafes and pubs.
    • Temporarily scrapping stamp duty on all homes under £500,000 to catalyse the housing market and boost confidence – helping to drive growth and create jobs.
    • Upgrading the energy efficiency of homes across England through a new £2 billion Green Homes Grant, saving people hundreds of pounds on their energy bills.
    • Creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs for young people through a new £2 billion Kickstart Scheme, to give young people the best possible chance of getting a job.
    • £1 billion to double the number of work coaches and support the unemployed.

Other things which the government is doing:

  • Providing a world-leading £1.57 billion package of emergency grants and loans to protect Britain’s world-class cultural, arts and heritage institutions. This is the largest ever investment in UK culture and will safeguard the sector for years to come, ensuring arts groups and venues across the country can stay afloat and support their staff as the economy cautiously reopens again.
     
  • Announcing plans to reopen travel routes with lower risk countries like France, Spain and Italy from 10 July, so that people can go on holiday this summer without needing to self-isolate on return. From 10 July, people returning from a range of countries including Germany, France, Spain and Italy will be able to enter England without needing to self-isolate for 14 days. Passengers will still be required to provide contact information on arrival in the UK.
     
  • Announcing that staff and residents in care homes for the over 65s, and for those with dementia, will be regularly tested, as we continue to throw our arms around the most vulnerable in society. We are launching a new testing strategy for care homes, under which staff will be tested weekly, while residents receive a test every 28 days. This is in addition to intensive testing in any care home facing an outbreak. While we will start with care homes for the over 65s and those with dementia, we will extend the programme to all care homes for adults in August.
     
  • Delivering a new £500 million funding package for councils, to help them continue their response to coronavirus while addressing their financial pressures. The new £500 million un-ringfenced support will ensure they can continue to do that, bringing the total support for councils to £4.3 billion – part of the unprecedented £27 billion package to support councils, businesses and communities announced over recent months.
     
  • Publishing detailed guidance for all schools in preparation for September – so that children across the whole country can safely return to their education. Our guidance will allow schools to reopen their doors to as all children in September. The safety and wellbeing of every single child and their teachers continues to be our absolute top priority.

Keep well


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