Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will extend eligibility criteria to new starters who missed the date for enrolment in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme due to (a) the date of starting a new job and (b) their employer’s choice of timing in submitting paperwork to HMRC.

The Government has prioritised helping the greatest number of people as quickly as possible. For this reason, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has had to be set up to operate at significant scale and with limited manual intervention.

Extending the cut-off date beyond 19 March would significantly increase the risk of abuse and fraud, as claims could not be confidently verified against the risk of fraud using the data after 20 March, when the scheme became public.