Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a £30 billion injection into the economy (Picture: Sky News)

British companies will make no VAT payments until the end of June under dramatic new measures to protect businesses and jobs amid the coronavirus outbreak.

In a Downing Street press conference today, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he would defer the next quarter of VAT payments for firms in a £30 billion injection into the economy.

Mr Sunak said: ‘To help businesses pay people and keep them in work I’m deferring the next quarter of VAT payments, that means no business will pay any VAT from now until the end of June.

‘And you’ll have until the end of the financial year to repay those bills. That’s a direct injection of over £30 billion of cash to businesses equivalent to 1.5% of GDP.’


To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Mr Sunak has admitted his commitments are ‘unprecedented measures for unprecedented times’ (Picture: Sky News)

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced plans to shut bars, clubs and restaurants (Picture: Sky News)

For the latest coronavirus updates and coverage in the UK and around the world click here.



In the same press conference, the government announced plans to pay over 80% of wages for at-risk workers for at least three months and increase the Universal Credit standard allowance for the next 12 months by £1,000 a year.

The government said the lifeline for workers could be extended if called for and that there is ‘no limit’ to the amount of funding available.

Mr Sunak has admitted his commitments are ‘unprecedented measures for unprecedented times’.

He told the British people to band together and act with decency, saying: ‘We want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us.

‘We want to look back on this time and remember how we thought first of others and acted with decency.

‘We want to look back on this time and remember how in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort and we stood together. It’s on all of us.’

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has ordered all pubs, clubs, theatres, gyms, bars and restaurants across the whole of the UK to shut tonight.

Businesses will have until the end of the financial year to repay bills (Picture: Shutterstock / Ovidiu Dugulan)

He said: ‘You may be tempted to go out tonight and I say to you please don’t, you may think that you are invincible – but there is no guarantee that you will get it.

‘But you can still be a carrier of the disease and pass it on. We want you as far as possible to stay at home.’

The Tory leader said ‘bit by bit, day by day’ the nation’s collective efforts were helping to tackle the pandemic, which has now taken 177 lives.

Britain at 'critical point' in pandemic, top scientists will warn

However, he has appealed to people to follow social distancing advice, saying ‘physically we need to keep people apart’.

He added that the nation’s economic recovery and thousands of lives depend on bringing the outbreak to a halt.

Mr Johnson said: ‘I do accept that what we’re doing is extraordinary – we’re taking away the ancient inalienable right of freeborn people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub. And I can understand how people feel about that.

A woman wears a protective mask as she travels on an underground train on March 20, 2020 in London (Picture: Getty Images)

A woman wearing a protective face mask walks past a shop, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues (Picture: Reuters)

‘But I say to people who do go against the advice that we’re getting, the very clear advice that we’re getting from our medical and scientific experts, you know you’re not only putting your own life, the lives of your family, at risk – you’re endangering the community



‘And you’re making it more difficult for us to get on and protect the NHS and save lives.

‘And if you comply, if people comply as I say, then we will not only save lives, thousands of lives, but we’ll come out of this thing all the faster.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.