The £13 a day for self-isolators shows how chronically out of touch this government is

Matt Hancock has already stated he wouldn’t be able to live on that in a commendable (and all too rare) show of honesty. That’s because it’s not enough to live on

I’ve been banging on for months about the glaringly obvious problem with telling British people who are potentially exposed to the coronavirus to self-isolate for 14 days: a huge number of them simply can’t afford it.

It’s all very well for a cabinet of millionaires to talk about doing your patriotic duty, but the fact is that putting food on the table, keeping the electricity connected and making rent is going to trump standing behind the Union Jack with BoZo the No 10 clown every time.

Staying home is not an option for millions of people if they want to do that. For them, it’s a case of don’t work, don’t eat, and if you’ve encountered someone with a Covid cough in the workplace, cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t get you.

But wait – what’s this? With local lockdowns in operation in parts of the country, and potentially on the way for others, someone in the corridors of power appears to have belatedly woken up to the fact that self-isolating comes with a price tag that millions of British workers can’t pay.

So, from Tuesday, people who qualify for either universal credit or working tax credit and who cannot work from home will be able to claim the sum of £13 a day. The policy is being launched in the northwest of England, a region where the virus is busily doing its worst.

The trouble with the plan is that it’s about as useful as putting a line of yellow police tape in front of a herd of charging tuskers as a means of slowing the spread of the virus.

Consider: the payment is good for less than 90 minutes of work at Britain’s minimum wage – currently £8.72 an hour for those aged 25 and over – which isn’t itself enough to live on, according to the Living Wage Campaign. The latter bases its own rates – £9.30, or £10.75 in London – on the actual cost of living.

Consider too that people in jobs paying something at or near the level of the minimum wage are unlikely to have the sort of savings necessary to cushion them in the event of enduring a drop in their already meagre income to just £13 a day for a couple of weeks.

It’s true that the new benefit will put them within spitting distance of the UK’s statutory sick pay of £95 a week. But the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has already said, in a commendable (and all too rare) show of honesty, that he wouldn’t be able to live on that. That’s because it’s not enough to live on.

Consider too that low-wage employers tend not to be the most sympathetic when their people have to ring in sick. This may have played a role in the local lockdown endured by Leicester, what with its sizeable garment trade, and the less than savoury conditions endured by some of those working in it.

The TUC reckons there are maybe 2 million people ineligible for statutory sick pay for a variety of reasons.

Even though the policy is a graphic example of shutting the stable door when the horse is making a ruckus in the half-empty high street, it may still help some of those people.

For example, there will be those left too sick by Covid-19 to work, for whom the payment could serve to keep the wolf from the door for a bit. That’s something to be welcomed because crumbs are better than nothing when you’re starving.

But it does nothing to solve the dilemma of those on low wages who find themselves potentially exposed to the virus, a dilemma that it’s taken months for a chronically out-of-touch government to even recognise, much less pay any attention to.

As Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Manchester, correctly observed, this measure goes nowhere near far enough.

Britain’s efforts to keep the scourge at bay will be constricted until ministers wake up to that fact.