Sunak’s high-handedness with freelancers shows his days as the star of the Covid crisis could be numbered

The chancellor’s failure to address repeated pleas to provide financial support for more than 1 million people has prompted rare criticism of the government’s golden boy, writes James Moore

The chancellor on a jobcentre visit: his lack of concern for freelancers has angered some quarters (Getty)

Mel Stride mightn’t be wielding a pitchfork anytime soon but the high-handed behaviour of the current government has at least moved him to starting thumping his desk.

“The chancellor has effectively drawn a line under helping the million-plus people who have been excluded from support for four months,” the Treasury Committee chair growls in a statement released this morning to coincide with the publication of Rishi Sunak’s response to his report on the gaps in the coronavirus job support measures.

“Despite stating that he will not pick winners and losers when it comes to sectors and businesses that need support, the chancellor has done this when it comes to households and individuals.”

Strong stuff from Stride, a former middle ranking Treasury minister before getting his hands on the tiller of one of the House of Commons’ more influential committees. He’s clearly been nettled by his old department’s airy dismissal of the report’s conclusions. Justifiably so.

The coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme (SEISS) have been rightly praised for keeping the roof from falling in for millions of Britons. But they are far from free of holes. In total, the committee said in a report published in June, more than 1 million people have found themselves in a very tough spot through no fault of their own.

The plight of freelancers has garnered a lot of attention, ditto those working on short term contracts (a particular problem for the media and creative industries). Others identified by the June report include people starting new jobs, the newly self employed, those just above the £50,000 SEISS cut off and some small company directors.

The committee recognised that the granting of emergency financial support at the pace and scale that the Treasury did as the pandemic bit inevitably “resulted in some hard edges in policy design and some critical gaps in provision”. Given his old job(s) you would expect Stride to have some sympathy for that and fair enough.

But he is right to expect better than what he got from Chancellor Sunak in response to his committee’s polite request for him to live up to his commitment to “do what it takes” by addressing the gaps it identified. The hardships faced by those who’ve fallen through them is real and in some cases severe. Its pleas on their behalf were far from unreasonable.

The high-handed tone of Sunak’s letter, although far from unusual for the government in which he serves, still speaks poorly of him. It shows a lot of self-congratulation (look, we’ve spent £36bn on individuals and £123bn on tax deferrals and loans for businesses!), some excuses (we’re worried about fraud especially with the SEISS, we’re doing everything we can but it can’t carry on forever, we’ve adapted the schemes as much as possible) and a brush off (thanks for the report, but this is what we’re doing now and in the future so kindly run along).

He could easily have handled it with a little more adroitness by saying something like, while we don’t accept everything you’ve said we think you might have a point here and here and we’ll have a look into it to see what we can do. It would have been politically savvy even if it ultimately probably wouldn’t have done much for the hundreds of thousands of freelancers in need of help.

But no, that might have displayed “weakness” or something. Far better to stick to the Dominic Cummings designed playbook. That’s something for those who think Sunak’s a superstar, a potential saviour if and when the government implodes, to think about. The chances are this isn’t the last time Stride will find himself having to bang on his desk.