21st December 2020 10:31 am
Dire predictions for the economy could be offset by the UK’s agile SMEs writes Jason Ford
Former PM Theresa May denied the existence of a ‘Magic Money Tree’ in 2017 but her successor Boris Johnson and his chancellor Rishi Sunak knew exactly where to find it in 2020.
Forced into unplanned spending to cope with the Covid-19 crisis, the government was estimated by the National Audit Office to have spent £210bn during the first six months of the pandemic.
Out of necessity, funds were released for a raft of measures including the procurement of PPE for front line healthcare workers, the design and build of new ventilators, the much-criticised NHS Test and Trace programme, furlough and funding to support the self-employed and businesses struggling to cope with government-imposed lockdown conditions.