Too many people worked from home during pandemic, says Sunak
Sheeple were just too compliant
'Too many people ended up working from home during the Covid pandemic'. That is what Rishi Sunak told the Covid Enquiry today.
The Prime Minister blamed “over-compliance” with the stay at home order, for the collapse of the economy and much else, suggesting that other countries had been able to keep more industries, such as construction, up and running.
The assurtion that it was 'the most complient' that were to blame for crashing the economy, is a rude awakening for many, particularly those who blamed others not following the rules as granny-killers.
The Government and employers say they are still struggling to get people back to work, even long after lockdown handouts have ended.
The Bank of International Settlements said those who do work are putting in fewer hours each week since the pandemic and that people had had a “change in attitude towards work”
Mr Sunak also said the public had forgotten that Covid measures had to be paid for, as he said higher taxes were a “direct consequence” of the pandemic.
In his written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Rishi Sunak said the Treasury had expressed concern that there had been “over-compliance with the Government stay at home messaging during the first lockdown”.
Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked whether the worry was that the public had not understood “sufficiently clearly from the Government’s communications that they should go to work only if they could not work from home”.
Sunak said: “You’re right in summarising the situation. Perhaps the best example of it is in the construction industry… we’d seen what had happened in other European countries. More activity was able to be continued in Europe than was the case in the UK. Fewer people were out at work than had been anticipated.”
Businesses are still counting the cost of the shift to working from home, which has become an ingrained habit for many workers. Current estimates of the total cost of the Government response to the pandemic range from £310 billion to £410 billion – the equivalent of £4,600 to £6,100 per person.
Sunak told the inquiry: “The impact of having to pay it back only comes well after the fact when everyone forgets why it was necessary. And now everyone is grappling with the consequences, I am grappling with the consequences of that, as we have a historically high tax burden that is higher than I would like.
“That is a direct consequence of the support that was provided during the pandemic and then later on, and those things are often hard to get across.”
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