Nearly 700,000 people have signed a petition calling for the government to offer more support to self-employed workers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
A plea to Boris Johnson to give the self-employed statutory sick pay has amassed more than 687,000 signatures in a matter of days.
The government has said workers forced to self-isolate due to the Covid-19 pandemic can get statutory sick pay (SSP), but Britain's 4.8m self-employed are excluded, prompting mounting anger.
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, today admitted that designing a scheme to incorporate this sect of the workforce is "incredibly complicated".
The petition, on the Parliament website, says: “The self-employed make up 15% of UK's workforce. Majority are not entitled to any sick pay.
“I want the Government to include us in the recent changes to statutory sick pay because of the Corona-19 virus.
“Excluding us means the Government [is] running the risk of said people continuing going to work as just like everyone else we have bills to pay and [are potentially] thus spreading the virus.”
It has now far surpassed the 100,000 signatures needed for a debate in the Commons.
The SSP allowance, paid by employers for up to 28 weeks, currently stands at £94.25 per week and the government has said those affected by Covid-19 can get it from day one.
Last week the government announced that the “self-employed can now access in full universal credit at a rate equivalent to statutory sick pay for employees," providing they meet the usual UC criteria.
The minimum income floor for payments and business rates have also been “relaxed”, the government said, meaning the self-employed will be treated the same as employees when the DWP calculates their payment.
But Andy Chamberlain, director of policy at the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE), told Sky News this lunchtime: "“That’s not going to cover your rent or your bills or the food that you need, so people will be tempted to go to work.
“The government must urgently announce some sort of income protection measure for self employed people so that they can say, ‘ok I’ll stay at home and not go to work because I know I’m going to get some income elsewhere.'”
Responding to a question in the Commons this lunchtime, Mr Sunak said: “There are genuine practical and principled reasons why it is incredibly complicated to design an analogous scheme to the one that we have for employed workers.
“But, rest assured that we absolutely understand the situation that many self-employed people face at the moment as a result of what’s happening and are determined to find a way to support them.
“We just need to be confident that can be done in a way that is deliverable and is fair to the vast majority of the British workforce.”
He added that the government is discussing the situation with relevant representatives and will be making further announcements.
