The chancellor’s extension of the furlough scheme lets employers breathe a sigh of relief – for now

Editorial: Questions about the details still remain but there are far fewer than surround the lockdown ‘road map’, or the chaos of track and trace

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces changes to the furlough scheme in the House of Commons (Reuters)

Alone among his colleagues, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is displaying some sound judgement during this crisis. The announcement that the furlough scheme is to be extended until the end of October represents enormous reassurance to workers and employers alike. Close to a million businesses and 8 million staff owe their economic survival to the scheme. It, along with the wider suite of economic support measures from government and the Bank of England, is one of the few areas where the British government’s response has been anything like “world leading”, in the chancellor’s words. So far, the government is doing what it needs to prevent a pandemic mutating into a slump.

The basics of the renewal of the scheme were laid out with great clarity. Employees on the scheme will, if things go to plan, be able to count on eight-tenths of their wages (up to a cap of £2,500 per month) for the likely remainder of the current stage of the emergency, until 1 November.

Despite some unhelpful rumours about the scheme being swiftly curtailed, there will be no “cliff edge”. Wherever the briefings about ministers being anxious to get the country “weaned off” its “addiction” to the job-retention scheme were coming from, such insulting and alarming language was rejected by Mr Sunak.