Businesses must not pay for Covid ‘roadmap’ delay, Labour tells Sunak

Today marks five years since the murder of Jo Cox. Party members and politicians have been paying tribute to the former Labour representative for Batley and Spen, killed by a far-right extremist while carrying out her duties as a constituency MP, who used her maiden speech in parliament to tell us: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.” Her sister Kim Leadbeater’s campaign to win the Batley and Spen by-election has been suspended for the day.

Sadiq Khan has this morning called on the government to continue supporting business unable to fully reopen in light of the four-week delay to the Covid ‘roadmap’. “These businesses are on life support,” the London mayor told Sky News. “It doesn’t make sense for the business rate relief to be reduced, for the moratorium on evictions to be stopped and for them to have to pay towards the furlough scheme at a time when they can’t fully reopen.” He reminded viewers that one in five of the jobs in the capital are in retail, hospitality or culture, adding: “We desperately need these businesses to flourish and thrive.”

Nick Thomas-Symonds blamed the “unforgivable recklessness” of the government for the four-week delay. Dubbing the Delta variant, first identified in India, the “the Johnson variant” in a speech yesterday, the Shadow Home Secretary condemned the failure of the government to “secure our borders against Covid”. He insisted ministers must do “everything possible to prevent a further delay” of the relaxation now set for July 19th, including scrapping the ‘amber’ list of countries. “If we are going to grow that green list,” he said. “We have to have these measures in place. We have to move those countries on the amber list to the red list.”

Labour last night demanded answers for businesses following the announcement. Rachel Reeves called on ministers to clarify why they are continuing with the lifting of the ban on commercial evictions, the reduction of business rates support and the recovery of Covid debt. “It is unforgivable that the Prime Minister told businesses on Monday evening what they couldn’t do as a result of his failure to deal with the Delta variant, while at the same time failing to outline details of business support for those hardest hit by the changes,” the Shadow Chancellor said. “The government’s failure to secure our borders has harmed our nation’s health and our wealth and Rishi Sunak must come to the House of Commons to guarantee that no business will pay the price for the government’s latest failure.”

MPs are set to approve the extension of the restrictions in parliament this evening. A small group of backbench Tories are expected to vote against the government, and we can expect some lockdownsceptic/denier fury in the debate today. Labour has indicated that it will support the extension of the restrictions this evening, but Keir Starmer will have the chance to direct his frustrations at Boris Johnson during PMQs this afternoon. Stay tuned for updates.