Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Comments on her Calls for Government to Rethink Furlough Arrangements

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 24 September 2020.

I have been warning for months and months that the Chancellor’s one-size-fits-all withdrawal of furlough support was a recipe for a jobs disaster this autumn. I gave the Chancellor 40 chances to u-turn on this, and 20 times his Government ruled out any change.

I gave the Chancellor solutions too. In May I said we should be considering a flexible, short hours scheme. In August I told the Chancellor to look to countries like Germany which already have such schemes up and running. And just this week I put forward Labour’s plan for a Job Recovery Scheme that would allow businesses to bring back staff on reduced hours.

Time and time again the Chancellor failed to listen, and now tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs. Too slow on lockdown, too slow on testing, too slow on schools – and too slow to protect jobs.