Sadiq Khan urges chancellor to quicken delivery of emergency funds

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has urged Chancellor Rishi Sunak to speed up the pace of emergency funding for small- and medium-sized businesses and the self-employed.

Khan (pictured) said the majority of Londoners will work for a small- or medium-sized business and more than half of businesses in the capital fit this criteria.

“If these businesses go bust, not only does it mean less taxes for the government, but it means people out of work and claiming benefits so my message to the government is we have to accelerate the cashflow coming,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

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“Five weeks is too far away, June is too far away in relation to the self-employed.

“But also, the banks have to realise it doesn’t benefit from these businesses going bust and the idea that small businesses have to put their house as a guarantor to the banks seems to me to be very unfair.

“The banks have to step up and the Bank of England has to say to the banks ‘listen the terms upon which we lent you the money was you support people’.

“The public are fed up of institutions being bailed out and supporting people being sacrificed, that’s why my message to the chancellor and to the banks, is you need to urgently get money into the pockets and purses of these businesses and places of work.

“If they’re gone, you’re going to have huge unemployment and the taxpayer will have to pick up the bill, it doesn’t make sense to me, it’s common sense. That’s why it’s really important for the chancellor and the banks to step up.”

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