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5 February, 2021 Open access

Shadow Chancellor calls on the government to immediately announce extension of furlough scheme beyond April 2021

Anneliese Dodds also calls for 'smart' reforms to the scheme, including tough conditions on employers to stop abuse and new training to support furloughed workers improve skills

The Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds has called on the Chancellor Rishi Sunak to immediately announce the extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme beyond 30 April 2021.

Highlighting that seven months after the Chancellor launched the government’s Plan for Jobs, redundancies are at a record high, 1.7 million people are out of work and 4.6 million people are still on furlough, Ms Dodds calls on Mr Sunak to announce an extension to the furlough scheme now instead of waiting for the Budget on 3 March 2021.

In addition, Ms Dodds calls for urgent 'smart' reform of the scheme and the government's job creation programmes by -

Ms Dodds said -

‘Rishi Sunak’s Plan for Jobs has been a disaster. Seven months after its launch, we’ve got record redundancies, soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis of any major economy.

We need urgent action to secure, recover and create jobs. This must include a smarter furlough scheme, an overhaul of the failing Kickstart youth programme, and reform of the shambolic Green Homes Grant as part of wider action to ‘Build it in Britain’ and support the creation of 400,000 clean, new jobs.

People can’t afford to wait for the Chancellor to get his act together. They need emergency action today, not more dither and delay until the Budget.’

For more information, see Labour calls for ‘smart’ furlough scheme as part of emergency action to tackle Britain’s jobs crisis from labour.org.uk