Coronavirus: Mortgage holiday and £330bn of govt-backed loans announced

Government-backed loans worth £330bn and a three-month mortgage holiday have been announced by the chancellor as part of “unprecedented” measures to help businesses and families.

Rishi Sunak unveiled the package of support at a Downing Street news conference on Tuesday as he said the UK faced an “economic emergency” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have never in peacetime faced an economic fight like this one,” he added.

Describing the coronavirus crisis as “a time to be bold, a time for courage”, the chancellor told businesses and households: “This government will give you all the tools you need to get through this.”

Mr Sunak announced:

• A package of £330bn of loan guarantees to businesses
• Interest-free business interruption loans will be increased to £5m
• A 12-month business rates holiday for all shops, pubs, theatres, music venues and restaurants
• A cash grant of up to £25,000 for those businesses with a rateable value of less than £51,000
• A three-month mortgage holiday for those in difficulty because of coronavirus

The chancellor promised further measures to “support people’s financial security” in the coming days.

He said he would work with trade unions and business groups to “urgently develop new forms of employment support to help protect people’s jobs and their incomes through this period”.

Speaking before Mr Sunak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK may have to “go further and faster in the coming days” to try and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

This is despite the already stringent measures he announced on Monday, which he described as “unprecedented since World War Two”.

Mr Johnson added: “This enemy can be deadly, but it is also beatable – and we know how to beat it and we know that if as a country we follow the scientific advice that is now being given we know that we will beat it.

“And however tough the months ahead we have the resolve and the resources to win the fight.”

As of 9am on Tuesday, there were 1,950 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK – up 407 in the past 24 hours and a rise of 26%.

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the actual number of people in the UK with coronavirus was in the “ballpark” of around 55,000.

He told MPs the aim was for fewer than 20,000 people to die from the disease, despite that being a “horrible” number of deaths.

There are an estimated 8,000 deaths from seasonal flu each year.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab earlier advised Britons to avoid all non-essential foreign travel for 30 days as coronavirus continues to spread globally.

The NHS has postponed all non-urgent operations from 15 April at the latest, in a bid to free up beds in anticipation of the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic.

It is also block-buying beds in private hospitals.

Downing Street is now holding daily televised news conferences on its response to the pandemic.

Earlier, the prime minister chaired a cabinet meeting to discuss the government’s fightback against coronavirus.

Mr Johnson told his top ministers the UK is “engaged in a war against the disease which we have to win”.

The prime minister has established new government structures in the face of the COVID-19 crisis.

Four new committees to be chaired by top cabinet ministers – focusing on health, public sector preparedness, the economy, and the international response – will now feed into a new daily coronavirus meeting chaired by Mr Johnson.

The prime minister will also continue to chair regular meetings of the government’s emergency COBRA committee to take strategic decisions and review progress, Downing Street said.

(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Mortgage holiday and £330bn of govt-backed loans announced