once one of the cornerstones of any UK
high street after 200 years though its
place here is looking shaky and in a bid
to buy a bit of time debenhams is
putting itself into administration
beleaguered bosses are in damage
limitation mode saying it's simply a
move to avoid suppliers pushing them
into insolvency while coronavirus closes
its doors but this is the second time in
12 months
administrators have been called in of
course Debenhams has been struggling for
some time but its problems are now been
repeated across the business world as
companies are suddenly finding no cash
coming in and that squeeze is likely to
continue
just today new data revealed that
consumer confidence has been hit by the
biggest fall since records began and
that's just the latest evidence of a
dramatic collapse of economic activity
not seen in almost a century one
estimate today suggests a lockdown has
cut economic output by an extraordinary
31 percent that means it's costing us
all 2.4 billion pounds a day among the
area's hardest hit hotels and
restaurants down a hundred and seventy
two million pounds Manufacturing down by
five hundred million pounds and non-food
shops down by one hundred and fifty six
million but earnings won't simply start
whenever they shot down NSA analysts we
certainly can't assume that on day one
after the log down restrictions are
eased the things are going to bounce
right back up to the pre lockdown level
and that we're immediately in a matter
of months going to make up for all this
lost output certainly some businesses
are going to see a pickup in activity as
the restrictions are eased but for other
ones this they are really losing output
which they will arguably never never get
back the drip feed of bad news from
industry after industry is speeding up
March is traditionally the best month of
the year for car sales last month they
were down 45 percent compared to last
year
even before the door shut many customers
were staying at home many more afraid of
getting themselves into increased debt
March sales fell to the
lowest level in more than two decades
and with production forecast down 23%
there's no bounce-back in sight the
slowdown may be almost universal but the
pain isn't shared out equally according
to new research by the Institute for
Fiscal Studies women younger workers and
low earners are particularly vulnerable
because they are more likely to work in
areas like retail and leisure the IFS
found that women are 1/3 more likely to
work in an affected sector than men
workers under 25 a two and a half times
more likely to be hit than other
employees and low earners seven times
more likely than high earners to work in
a shuttered business the longer this
drags on they warn the longer the
recovery long-run impacts can come
because people lose their job now and it
takes them a while to get back into work
they may get back into work on lower
wages and they otherwise would have
would have had and then they already
have been on relatively low wages if you
spend some time out of a labor market
particularly for young people that may
have quite a long term effect on their
income so if it's already those who are
the less well-paid who are affected they
may be less well-paid for a longer
period for some firms that were limping
by before coronavirus has forced their
hand Laura Ashley calling in the
administrators last month many others
are still struggling on but the question
is which names will survive and which
names will disappear completely Paul
McNamara well joining me now is the
newly appointed Shadow Chancellor
Annalise Dodds congratulations on the
job and thanks for coming on the program
thank you first of all what you would
have done differently compared to the
Chancellor who has lavished billions of
taxpayers money on this crisis what
would you have done differently well
obviously this is an unprecedented
crisis it was going to be challenging
for any governments to put the relevant
provisions into place I have to say that
you know I'm pleased in some areas that
the government has acted in some cases
it did take some time to put those
measures in
place and I suppose that's the first
place that I would start if we look at
the furlough scheme for example that
scheme which backfills
people's salaries up to 80 percent to
uncap now that scheme is absolutely
critical for keeping people in work
because as we've just heard from the
moment that somebody leaves work and
becomes unemployed that can't be
catastrophic for their income but it's
also very very bad for the economy as
well now it took quite some time for
that scheme to be put into place and for
a government to actually talk to the
trade unions and to businesses about
that scheme at least it's in place now
but we really need to make sure that as
many employers as possible participate
in that scheme is absolutely critical
that they retain that amount of
employment if at all possible now one of
the things that may have put off some
employers from using it of course is the
fact that it doesn't cover all of their
fixed costs micro salaries but it
doesn't necessarily cover you know the
relic trustee bills rent excedrin oh
that means that the loan scheme that
government put in place is absolutely
critical you know initially there were
problems with that we pointed those out
some changes have been made but we
really need to ensure that the banks are
actually getting that money out of the
door because it is going to be the
government itself has been saying but
when it comes to some of the big-ticket
items
you know virtually nationalizing the
railways guaranteeing 80 percent of
salaries I mean these are the kind of
things that Jeremy Corbyn was dreaming
of doing you know in his most socialist
dreams if you like and and now they're
actually happening under a Tory
government so has really soon I can away
made your job redundant well as I said
with furlough scheme with the 80 percent
wage guarantee while I absolutely
welcome it and it's necessary you know
we were calling for that for quite some
time before government began discussions
with paid unions and with businesses
about putting in place now I accept it
was a challenge to get it into place but
we can have that kind of delay in the
future you know again it took quite some
time for the package for self-employed
people to be put into a put into place I
accept that's difficult but actually
we've now got quite large numbers of
people who for the
time to access social security because
none of these schemes cover them and
when they try and do so as you know
they've got to wait for a very very long
time before they get anything and all
they get after two weeks is alone okay
we would not be adopting that approach
we think that Lauren's got to be
switched into a grin otherwise we're
going to have even more extreme levels
of pain URI briefly and finally who do
you think should pay for the enormous
amounts of money that had been borrowed
here well you know we're told sits
currently so many people are sacrificing
a huge amount because of this crisis and
that's absolutely right but us was just
mentioned in your program actually the
impact of all of this is falling very
very unequally we need to make sure in
the future that it's those with the
broadest shoulders who are actually
contributing to our recovery where they
can that's going to be really critical
as we go forward particularly when so
many people will have some little income
and then they stick out you saw we're
gonna have to leave it there thank you
very much for coming on the program