Following this road will require a transformation of how we work and live on an expectation-defying scale.
The CSJ’s proposals would bring practices in line with the private sector – and establish a new contract of fairness.
The job now needs to be completed by shoring up workers’ incomes and firms’ revenues to as close to 100 per cent as is practical.
The Government has sat on its hands over the National Retraining Scheme. Ministers need to deliver it – with laid-off workers in the fast lane.
Effectively, for much of the population, UBI would merely take their money and then give it back to them. What’s the point?
Plus: Treasury and Work & Pensions lessons. Greenlighters v the rest. Remembering Attlee’s surplus. And: the key question now is “how”, not “what”.
With the bazooka being well-wielded by Sunak, it seems almost churlish to suggest some further things the Treasury could do. But here are three.
By adapting the Statutory Maternity Pay system, the Chancellor’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will improve the lives of thousands of people.
The Chancellor should make further provision for them. But the vast though necessary expansion of state spending will need emergency powers-type checks.
“The taper could be lowered dramatically at this stage which would push the floor right up underneath people in work.”
Some form of the scheme may be necessary as an expedient. But beware: nothing lasts so long as the temporary.
The implications of the crisis are such that Johnson and Sunak need not so much to think outside the box as to trample it to tatters altogether.
“People self-isolating will get Statutory Sick Pay from the first day off work. This will be included in emergency coronavirus legislation.”
After crushing Labour last year, it might be tempting to rest on our laurels. But we need to act now to keep the extreme left locked out of Number 10.
Despite help being set out for companies during the pandemic, there have been issues with the implementation of schemes. Ministers must keep an eye on this.