This is bbc news, im reeta chakrabarti. The headlines the chancellor rishi sunak announces a newjob support scheme lasting six months from november he says it will save viable jobs. Mr speaker, these are radical interventions in the uk Labour Market policies we have never tried in this country before. A planned rise in vat has also been cancelled and businesses will now have longer to pay back government loa ns. Labour believes rishi sunak should have acted sooner unions say the measure will save hundreds of thousands of jobs. After months of delay, the nhs covid 19 Contact Tracing app goes live in england and wales anyone with a smartphone is being urged to download it. The latest test and trace results
show the numbers testing positive is almost three times higher than at the end of august. 600 people at Glasgow University are self isolating, after more than 120 students tested positive for coronavirus as freshers week ended. And is a little bit of hollywood glamour coming to wrexham . Ryan reynolds and Rob Mcelhenney may be investing in the Football Club. Good afternoon. The chancellor has set out new measures to protect millions ofjobs and the economy over the winter. Rishi sunak described the measures as radical interventions never before attempted in the uk. For employees working a minimum
of 33 of their normal hours, furlough will be replaced by a newjob support scheme lasting six months where government directly supports the wages of workers in viable jobs. Government will cover a third of workers lost pay, with the employer making up the other third. Support will be targeted at firms needing help the most. That is businesses facing lower demand overwinter due to covid 19. Mr sunak has announced a pay as you grow scheme to allow firms to repay bounce back loans over a period of up to 10 yea rs. The chancellor said he would keep vat at 5 for hospitality and tourism until march 31st 2021. Business and Union Leaders praised the chancellor at 11 downing street ahead of his announcement in the commons. For labour the shadow chancellor said the governments response was too slow to help businesses and employees struggling with the coronavirus crisis. Anneliese dodds said many people had already
lost theirjobs. From westminster, Jessica Parker reports. How are you going to pay for all of this, chancellor . Its a good question, though it may be a while before its unsaid. The chancellor, flanked today by union and business leaders. There is no red box because there is no budget. Instead, a winter plan. Chancellor. In the commons he said that while there were reasons for cautious optimism it was clear the virus and restrictions will be a fact of life for at least the next six months. Our economy is now likely to undergo a more permanent adjustment. The sources of our Economic Growth and the kinds of jobs we create will adapt and evolve to the new normal. And our plan needs to adapt and evolve in response. Furlough will end, arriving in its place a wage subsidy scheme from november. The government will directly support the wages of
people in work, giving businesses who face depressed demand the option of keeping employees in a job on shorter hours rather than making them redundant. Also in the package, extending loan schemes, further developing some tax bills schemes, further deferring some tax bills and keeping the lower 5 vat rate for hospitality and tourism until next spring. Shadow chancellor anneliese dodds. Labour said there was much in the statement to be welcomed but. Ive called for the introduction of a system of targeted wage support 40 times. That call has been rebuffed by this government 20 times. Its a relief this government have u turned now. But we must be open and honest. That delay in introducing this new scheme will have impacted on businesses confidence. We are glad the chancellor has accepted the need to extend support, but he is coming very late in the day to do this and its little comfort to those who have already lost theirjobs due to the impending ending of the furlough scheme. There is now no budget this year, no longer term tax and spending plans. Instead, the focus, and the money, is going into getting the economy through the immediate crisis. Working out how to pay for it all, that will come later. Cafes, restaurants wanted to go full steam ahead, but after the latest restrictions many will be looking for some further help. Having some level of support is going to give confidence. Its confidence not only to our own staff, but our customers. So as we come to the end of the furlough scheme there is a lot of unknown. Wright in topping up wages for workers the pressure is going to be on. A lot of those workers who are currently not working at all unlikely now i think to lose their jobs because they are only going to get support from the government if they are working at least a third of their hours. The warning lights came back on after a rise in infections. Frustrating those impatient to get the economy going again. Health and wealth tied together, with millions of jobs at stake. Jessica parker, bbc news. More now from our Political Correspondent, leila nathoo. The chancellor was under a lot of pressure to act. Question is will this go far enoughl think what was interesting as hearing rishi sunaks justification for why the furlough scheme will come to an end. He was talking about a permit adjustment of
the economy of coronavirus. Back in march when the furlough scheme was introduced we were talking about a temporary shock, the furlough scheme was designed as a bit of a bridge to get businesses through what was then supposed to be a short, sharp difficult time. Now, here we are six months on and rishi sunak is talking about permanent readjustment of the economy and acknowledging that he cannot protect all jobs economy and acknowledging that he cannot protect alljobs and focusing very much on the viable ones, so no, i dont think it will stop a tide of unemployment, but what he clearly hopes is that it will incentivise firms who may be worth thinking of making workers redundant, to say, you can now have a top up if you keep them going for a third of their hours, to try to make it possible for firms to limp hours, to try to make it possible forfirms to limp on, but hours, to try to make it possible for firms to limp on, but clearly there will be some companies, Small Businesses in particular, youre not able to operate in any way, for example anyone working in entertainment will not be able to even get to that 33 of hours. So clearly there was a commitment to provide continued support from the
government, but very clearly it wasnt going to be anywhere near as generous as you heard there from the iss, as the furlough scheme and rishi sunak have been definitive for a while now that that simply wasnt going to continue in its current form. And there was a rare show of political unity from a tory chancellor appearing alongside the head of the tuc. Binding them into this package. Yes, we have been accustomed to strange times now, but yes, certainly the unions and business groups were welcoming this. There had been a lot of pressure on the government to carry on the furlough in some way to stop a cliff edge, given that now we have new restrictions in place. Rishi sunak once again mentioned the timescale of six months, but i think there will still be various holes in it. We have heard talk about whether it is generous enough for the self employed and other people who have fallen through the net of previous Government Schemes and certainly for some businesses, having more time to pay back loans,
more time to pay taxes, that will for some businesses not be enough to keep them going, but clearly this is now the vision for the government for the next six months. Bigger visions about how this is all going to be paid for, no budget for this autumn as we have heard now, this is clearly a winter package of measures with bigger decisions about how to is all going to be paid for push down the track. 0k, leila, thank you, leila nathoo there from westminster. Pauljohnson is the director of the institute for fiscal studies, a leading Economic Research group. Hejoins me now. You said injest,s piece that this is less generous than the furlough scheme. Wasnt it bound to be . Yes, it was and it is obviously perfectly deliberate on the part of the chancellor. He wants to withdraw support from jobs that dont look like they are going to last beyond the next few months. Remember, the furlough scheme has been going since the beginning of april. If people had not been working out all over that whole period and still their employers are not able to employ them, even for a third of their normal hours, i think the chancellor is taking the view that those are jobs that may well not come back in the end and therefore there is limited value in continuing to support them. Of course, some of those will come back. There are still close down sectors like nightclubs, hospitality venues sectors like nightclubs, hospitality venues in city centres that if and when we get back to normal, we might expect to return. But a lot of those jobs, you might think, are gone for good and is the chancellor made clear, he is not good support those jobs if an item. And a headache, of course, for the government, is that there arent new businesses springing up in their place yet. There arent and we know vacancy rates are at historic lows. There are rates are at historic lows. There a re clearly rates are at historic lows. There are clearly somejobs rates are at historic lows. There are clearly some jobs or businesses
springing up. There are more online, more online business, vacancies in some sectors, but there are no near the scale of the ones that are being lost, so im afraid as the chancellor said and is most Economic Forecasters are saying, we are going to get a pretty big spike in unemployment over the last few months. We know how that we have already lost Something Like 750,000 jobs off company payrolls. That is not yet showing up in unemployment figures, but a whole series of complicated reasons for that. Certainly, the numbers ofjobs is already going down and they are going to go down further. And do you think that by postponing the autumn budget, the government is purely postponing the pain of how to pay for all of this . Just sort of delaying it all . Well, i mean. It never seemed likely to me. I have to say that the autumn budget was going to be about paying for this. We were
a lwa ys to be about paying for this. We were always going to be still in the supporting the economy phase of the fiscal calendar at the moment and evenif fiscal calendar at the moment and even if we hadnt had these additional measures over the last few days, we know that the economy is struggling and it is going to continue to struggle for some period. And i presume that putting of the budget until spring is really about trying to put whatever measures are in place then when there is a little more certainty about whether there is a vaccine available, how the economy is doing andindeed available, how the economy is doing and indeed what kind of brexit deal or not we are done with. So i think thatis or not we are done with. So i think that is really about spooning decisions for the long term, poor for next year at least, until we have got a bit more certainty about the state of the virus and the economy. And paul, you started by saying that this package of measures is quite a bit less generous than a furlough scheme, but it is the case that the government has poured billions of pounds into the economy to try to shore it up. Tens and
indeed hundreds of billions. I mean this has been a completely extraordinary level of Government Support. Never seen before, certainly in peacetime. We have got a deficit of well over £300 billion, the biggest in any year other than the biggest in any year other than the first years of the Second World Warand the first years of the Second World War and the government spending, additional spending of well in excess of 100 billion. These are vast numbers by comparison, anything we have literally ever seen before in history, or at least in peacetime. Actually, oddly enough i dont think the chancellor made the decisions he made today in order to save money. To save a small number of billions against the hundreds of billions that are swilling around. I actually think you made it out of a more principled economic reasoning that at some point it is more harmful to keep people injobs that just dont exist not doing anything,
thenit just dont exist not doing anything, then it is to allow those jobs to disappear and hopefully get people looking for newjobs. Disappear and hopefully get people looking for new jobs. There are interesting. Good to talk to you, thank you so much. That is paul johnson, the director of the institute for fiscal studies. Thank you. And just to let you know later today here on the news channel, at 5. 30 this afternoon well answer your questions on what you make of the new measures announced by the chancellor to supportjobs and the economy. So send your questions using the hashtag bbcyourquestions or email them using yourquestions bbc. Co. Uk. The governments coronavirus Contact Tracing app for england and wales, which has suffered delays and setbacks, can now be downloaded on smartphones. Nhs covid 19 will instruct users to self isolate if it detects they were near someone who has the virus. Our Technology Correspondent, rory cellanjones, has more. Voice over the nhs covid19 app is a vital part in the fight
against coronavirus. Its been a long and difficult journey, but finally the nhs covid 19 app is here for everyone across england and wales. It has a number of features. You can scan a qr code to register your presence at pubs, restaurants and other businesses, and it gives you information about the risk level where you live. And, of course, its designed to tell you if youve been in close contact with someone infected with the virus. What the app can do is find the contacts that human contact tracers cant find. For instance, people you dont know because, in the example i gave, youve been sitting near them on public transport. That might be one example, but there will be others and therefore it helps us to find more people who are at risk of having the virus. This is how it works. The app uses a bluetooth connection and if you come into close contact with others who have downloaded it that will be recorded on your phone. Should you report a positive
test through your phone, those people who have been in close contact with you will be sent an alert telling them to self isolate. An earlier version of the app trialled on the isle of wight was criticised for collecting too much data. It was cancelled and the new model relies on a privacy conscious system developed by apple and google. Now, if you do have significant contact with someone who later reports a positive test result, then youll get a notification telling you you must go into isolation. But the very private nature of the app means the government wont know who you are and whether you received that alert, so its all a matter of trust whether you obey that warning. One issue is that the app wont work on some older phones, but that applies to all those apps around the world which have relied on the technology from apple and google. Its simply the ability for the phone to be able to do its for the phone to be able to do its very, very clever contact the other
phone thing, so theyjust dont have that in older phones. So its a techy thing, not a policy thing, so itjust cant happen, so we have had some. The vast majority of phones in the hands of the people across the uk are post 2015 and it works in them. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already had their own Contact Tracing apps for some weeks. The scottish app was downloaded by a Million People about one fifth of the population within a week. Ministers will be happy if people in england and wales show similar enthusiasm. Rory cellan jones, bbc news. Areeq chowdhury, from the technology think tank, webroots democracy, who has also taken part in the track and trace app trial in newham. Hejoins me now. What you think this app . Yes, like you mentioned i have been lucky
enough to be part of the trial. It is good. I think the issue is there is good. I think the issue is there is no substitute for all of the other measures like social distancing, wearing a mask. It doesnt really give you an added layer of security, but it is useful if lots of people download it and this is the key thing here, that eve ryo ne this is the key thing here, that everyone who can should download the app because more people that use it, the more it is, so ifjust10 of people downloaded the app that is roughly a 1 chance of coming into contact with another app user, so thatis contact with another app user, so that is not as useful, but the government is trying to push forward its Advertising Campaign on this and encourage people to download it. Everyone who is watching now should encourage theirfriends everyone who is watching now should encourage their friends and family to also download it because it good become a useful tool in the fight against coronavirus. So when you are pa rt against coronavirus. So when you are part of this local trial, where you ever contacted to say that you had beenin ever contacted to say that you had been in touch with somebody with covid 19 . Been in touch with somebody with covid19 . No, thankfully not. Good
i was quite glad not be contacted. The only communication i received was through the post, the original letter. There is no major presence in the area, no billboards and also there is no distance between the trial and the roll out today. You would think that you would do the trial, publish the results and then scrutinise and amend the app. I dont think that has really taken place here, which is a little bit weird, but i suppose the timescales demand that the app comes out as soon as possible. So i dont know if you manage to hear the report earlier by a Technology Correspondent, who was saying there is an app that has been in circulation in scotland and that had a fifth of the population downloading it in the first week. That is a good proportion, isnt it . Yeah, that is a really good example in scotland of how to promote this up
in scotland of how to promote this up well and you know, they had a bi