Bank, Treasury and government functioning as one is not something we’re used to

Chris Blackhurst applauds the connected response to the coronavirus crisis and hopes this joined-up thinking and mature approach will continue

The chancellor has announced that roughly £30bn will be given to help alleviate the fallout from Covid-19 (Getty)

Well, we did not see that coming. A lifetime of covering Budget statements and the unveiling of supposedly large numbers that when you do the maths are anything but, has, I admit, turned me into a cynic where chancellor’s promises are concerned.

They make a pledge, I divide whatever they say by the population or the sum of businesses in Britain, whatever the declaration is concerning, and lo, the big boost starts to appear a lot smaller. That did not happen, though, with Rishi Sunak’s first Budget. He chucked out genuinely impressive figures. He spoke in billions, tens of them, in one go.

Roughly £30bn will be earmarked to combat the fallout from coronavirus: a strong cocktail of medicine, of extra money for the NHS, loan guarantees, scrapping business rates for some firms this year, together with a further assurance that the government will pick up the cost of sick pay for small firms, if their workers have to stay at home because of illness from the virus. This was serious stuff – not a package that for once, when you examined it closely, looked like not much at all.