With the decision to impose a curfew after midnight on nightlife and the recommendations to work from home from Friday, many people who work in those areas or who depend on those areas for work will lose income and, in many cases, lose their jobs outright. Against that background, it is completely unacceptable that today we should be reducing the PUP. Not only should we not cut the PUP but also we should restore the PUP and income payments for those who will be significantly affected by this latest turn of events with Covid-19.

The decisions we will be announcing will not be very impactful on employment. Working from home, as a practice, has been demonstrated in earlier parts of the pandemic to be achievable with minimal impact on the economic performance and productivity. I acknowledge it will be challenging for some employers and SMEs in particular. I do not believe there will be reduced employment as a result of the working from home decision. Since we reopened the economy and reopened society, all the feedback we have received has been on the number of vacancies that are not being filled. The consistent message from people in hospitality, personal services and a range of different employments is that they are finding it very difficult to recruit. Therefore, there are no plans to change the direction of travel in respect of the pandemic unemployment payment.