Coronavirus has taken centre stage just as Boris Johnson was hoping to start his show

The prime minister wants to use the Budget to show he is delivering on the promises of his election campaign, Andrew Woodcock says

Johnson’s targets on social care are expected to take a hit in the Budget due to coronavirus (Reuters)

The emergence of the coronavirus outbreak has forced the government to revise its priorities at precisely the moment when Boris Johnson was hoping to establish a positive narrative for his new administration.

Wednesday’s Budget was intended to draw a line under years of austerity following the financial crisis and “lay the foundations for a decade of growth” with major investment in infrastructure in “left behind” areas of the midlands and north of England, which switched from Labour to the Tories in the general election.

Instead, it will take place under the shadow of a novel and potentially fatal virus that emerged from a little-known mega-city in central China and has spread around the world at breakneck speed.

While the government is trying to keep its agenda on track, much official effort is now diverted to dealing with the threat of the disease, which looks likely to disrupt the economy and affect huge areas of ordinary people’s day-to-day life at potentially massive cost.

After initially being criticised for a hands-off approach to the outbreak, Mr Johnson stepped up a gear this week, chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergencies committee, staging a press conference with his chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser, and visiting research labs and hospitals.

He announced a £46m package of funding for urgent work to find a vaccine and develop a rapid test for the disease, as well as launching a national publicity campaign to promote the advice that washing hands is the most effective way to prevent the virus taking hold.

And he set out – initially sketchy – plans to ensure that workers who self-isolate in line with medical advice on developing possible symptoms of the disease are not left out of pocket.

The environment secretary, George Eustice, held talks with supermarkets about maintaining food supplies in the face of expected panic-buying and disruption to supply chains, after his cabinet colleague Matt Hancock was criticised for jumping the gun with suggestions that deliveries could be made to sufferers’ doors.

Further talks with retailers are expected next week, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is due to hold talks with sporting bodies about the possible cancellation of events to prevent fans spreading the disease. Ministers from every ministry in Whitehall have rapidly had to draw up plans to deal with the impact of possible mass infection and self-isolation.

An emergency bill to be rushed through parliament by the end of the month is expected to include provisions to allow courts to hear cases by video link and make it easier for volunteers to take time away from work to help in health and social care.

New NHS data released this week showed that telephone calls to NHS 111 were up by more than a third compared with the same time last year, with an extra 120,000 calls to NHS 111 in the first week of March. In the week between 27 February and 5 March alone, NHS 111 answered 389,779 calls. To help deal with this demand, around 500 additional initial call responders have been trained.

All of this activity has inevitably diverted manpower and resources from the government’s other priorities and distracted attention from what would normally be one of the highpoints of the parliamentary year.

Wednesday’s Budget formed a big part of a heroic list of targets which Mr Johnson claimed during the general election campaign that he would deliver within 100 days if he won.

One element of the package – starting cross-party talks on social care reform – has already missed the 100-day deadline. And although the Budget just scrapes in at 90 days, it is later than promised and will be a very different beast from the package envisaged in December.