Boris Johnson signalled tonight he wants the two-metre coronavirus social distancing rule axed as soon as possible as he admitted it was poisoning Britain’s economic recovery.
The Prime Minister appealed to the nation for patience as he told anxious workers and business owners ‘we hear you’ as he fronted tonight’s Downing Street press conference.
Answering a question from ‘Trevor from Northampton’ he said that as long as coronavirus cases continued to fall there would be a ‘strong case’ for bringing the distance down.
Hospitality and other sectors have been calling for the two-metre guidance to be eased, saying it will hamper efforts to get up and running again in July.
The Prime Minister said: ‘We are keeping it under constant review and as we depress the numbers, as we reduce the incidence, I think we will also have a strong case for for reviewing those measures as well
‘I hope to be able to do that but I’m afraid to say we can’t do it yet, we need to continue to make progress.
‘We are getting there, I know people are very, very impatient about this, we are making as much progress on that as we can, watch this space because we absolutely hear you.’
Mr Johnson’s appearance at the briefing came as the number of UK workers on the payroll plummeted by 600,000 between the start of the coronavirus lockdown and May.
In a sign of the carnage to come, official figures showed the number of paid employees dived 2.1 per cent or 612,000 between March and last month.
The breakneck decline is particularly worrying with figures this morning showing the government’s furlough scheme is now propping up 9.1million jobs – many of which might never return as UK plc reels from the pandemic.
The number of employees on payroll has fallen dramatically since the lockdown came in
An update on the government’s furlough scheme today shows that the number of jobs covered has hit 9.1million
Jobless claims under Universal Credit have soared by 1.6million – 125.9 per cent – over the same period.
Vacancies showed an eye-watering reduction of 342,000 in March-May compared to the previous quarter – a sharper fall than than the credit crunch.
However, the worst of the hit for workers appears to have been masked by the government’s massive furlough bailout scheme, with experts warning of 1980s levels of unemployment by the end of the year.
The PM’s official spokesman said: ‘We are seeing the impact of coronavirus on our economy, as is the case in many countries.
‘It’s started to show in today’s figures but our extensive support … has protected thousands of businesses and millions of jobs with 6.3million jobs furloughed up to May 3 worth £8billion. We are reopening the economy to get people back to work.’
The grim jobs data emerged as former Tory leader William Hague joined calls from a swathe of MPs for the two-metre rule to be abandoned immediately to save the UK from a complete meltdown.
In an analogy to the famous rescue of thousands of British soldiers from the beaches Dunkirk in France during the Second World Ward, Lord Hague described lockdown as an ‘heroic operation in itself but the result of a massive failure’.
He urged the government to heed calls for testing on a ‘massive scale’ so that social distancing curbs are no longer required.
In the Commons this afternoon, Mr Johnson was again challenged by one of his own MPs, Desmond Swayne, on when the distancing would be reduced. ‘I am determined to make life as easy as possible for our retailers, for our hospitality industry, but we must defeat this virus… ‘ he said.
‘The numbers of deaths have massively come down, the number of new hospital admissions have massively come down. We continue to make progress, but we must make sure that we get the virus fully under control before we make the change that he wants.’
In other rollercoaster coronavirus developments today:
- Official figures showed at least 52,594 people have died of Covid-19, but the numbers in England and Wales were at a 10-week low in the seven days to June 5;
- Around one in five pupils are said to have carried out no schoolwork at home, or less than an hour a day, since schools closed partially in March, according to research by UCL Institute of Education;
- Scientists at Imperial College London will begin testing another possible coronavirus vaccine on humans this week.
- The Prime Minister faces a growing rebellion after he rejected England footballer Marcus Rashford’s demand to extend its free school meal voucher scheme through the summer holidays.
New official unemployment figures were released by the Office of National Statistics today
The number of weekly hours worked fell sharply in the latest ONS figures released today
The claimant count showed an alarming rise over the last few months as people struggled to get by
The figures rose most sharply in London and the South East, according to the ONS data
Former Conservative leader William Hague (pictured) has today brandished the coronavirus lockdown a ‘disaster for society’ as he warned ‘there can be no second lockdown’
The ONS figures underline the scale of the damage being wreaked on UK plc by the draconian restrictions. It emerged last week that GDP plunged by a fifth in April, putting the country on track for the worst recession in 300 years.
The details today reveal that the number of people temporarily away from work, including furloughed workers, rose by six million at the end of March into April.
Employment was down 0.8 per cent in April, while the jobless rate was up 0.1 per cent month-on-month. Inactivity rose significantly and total hours worked recorded a record fall of 94million a week.
The claimant count – which inludes people fully out of work, but also those who are having their incomes topped up by the state – was up to around 2.8million.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the figures showed the furlough scheme was working.
He insisted ministers and scientists are working as fast as possible to review the two-metre rule. In a strong hint that there will be a relaxation, he told Sky News: ‘We will get there and it won’t be weeks and weeks away.’
Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS, said: ‘The slowdown in the economy is now visibly hitting the labour market, especially in terms of hours worked.
‘Early indicators for May show that the number of employees on payrolls were down over 600,000 compared with March.
‘The Claimant Count was up again, though not all of these people are necessarily unemployed.’
He added: ‘More detailed employment data up to April show a dramatic drop in the number of hours worked, which were down almost 9 per cent in the latest period, partly due to a six million rise in people away from work, including those furloughed.’
Experts believe the full impact of the crisis will not be shown until August at the earliest because of the cushion of the furlough scheme.
Scores of MPs, including former Cabinet ministers, used a debate in the House of Commons yesterday to urge the Government to announce its decision on the two-metre rule before July 4.
Ex-business secretary Greg Clark asked why having a restriction shorter than two metres in other countries was ‘right for them but wrong for us’, while Commons defence committee chair Tobias Ellwood said it was ‘now time for the Government to decide’, not in two weeks.
Average weekly hours worked, adjusted for seasonal variations, was down significantly since lockdown. The self-employed were particularly hard-hit
Vacancies showed an eye-watering reduction of 342,000 in March-May compared to the previous quarter – a sharper fall than than the credit crunch
There was a slump in full-time self-employed men in February to April this year
The youngest age groups were the hardest hit by the early phase of the lockdown period
Mr Shapps told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘What we now need to do is perform the task of both, frankly, restarting the economy, but without restarting the virus.
‘And that, of course, is a tricky business because you have got to make judgment calls about whether two metres, for example, needs to remain in place. Or whether you can bring it down, or not.
‘And there is plenty of contradictory evidence, indeed, plenty of international comparisons where countries are doing both things, and that’s why we are spending time looking at that.’
James Reed, of employment agency, Reed Group, told the BBC: ‘This is just the beginning. We are in for a major adjustment and unemployment could reach as high as 15 per cent.
‘I fear there is a pent up tsunami of job losses because the furlough scheme now has nine people on it and including the self employed. It means about a third of the workforce is inactive. My fear is that a lot of these people will lose their jobs at the end of this’.
In his Telegraph column, Lord Hague said: ‘We now know therefore that a lockdown is not a temporary blip or a paid holiday, but a disaster for our society.
‘It is increasing inequality, social tension, and unaffordable debt.
‘Globally, the World Bank has estimated that up to 60 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty.
‘Such a disaster cannot under any circumstances be repeated. There can be no second lockdown.’
Lord Hague urged the government to cut the two meter social distancing rule and urged them to bring the distance in line with countries such as Denmark, France and Germany – where it is 1.5 metres.
He said the decision would save ‘great swathes’ of the hospitality industry.
Lord Hague also called on the government to listen to Tony Blair, who was Prime Minister during the former Conservative’s leader’s four year spell as Leader of the Opposition, and put in place a policy of mass testing in a bid to avoid a second lockdown.
Lord Hague has called on Boris Johnson (pictured) to stop ‘agonising’ over the two metre social distancing rule in order to save the UK economy
Accommodation and food services saw the biggest fall in the latest ONS figures today
The steady fall in unemployment rates has levelled out in an early sign of trouble to come
He said this mass testing should involve ‘millions of test every week’ and should be carried out as people ‘arrive at work, attend conferences or just decide to go out.’
‘While the cost would run into billions of pounds, it would be very little compared to the costs of one day of lockdown.’ he added.
Yesterday, in a boost to the retail economy, shops reopened for the first time since the government introduced its draconian lockdown measures in March to slow the spread of coronavirus.
More than 41,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the UK so far, while there have been almost 300,000 confirmed cases – though actual figures are thought to be much higher.