As the Chancellor announces an expansion of the Job Support Scheme, IEA Editorial and Research Fellow Professor Len Shackleton said:

“This is a hugely depressing development. It marks yet another U-turn after the Chancellor appeared less than a fortnight ago to have ruled out further furlough extensions. It undermines the government’s credibility and risks damaging the confidence of businesses on whose prosperity our health services ultimately depend.

“While affected pubs and restaurants will no doubt be grateful for some assistance, it is unclear that they were responsible for renewed outbreaks, or that closing them down is a sensible and proportionate policy which will slow the rise in infections.

“The position of some in government seems to be that we have to lock down repeatedly until a miraculous vaccine appears. That prospect increasingly seems like a mirage, and we need some sign that there is a Plan B rather than adding more and more to public borrowing.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

For media enquiries please contact Annabel Denham, Director of Communications, 07540770774

Professor Len Shackleton is available for further comment.

For further reading:

How to create new jobs, published on 08/10/20

Pubs and COVID-19: Flawed claims and faulty reasoning, published on 09/10/20

 The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.