Coronavirus: newly qualified barristers say government package for self-employed is “woefully insufficient”

Following UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement last Thursday, junior barristers have said that the support package for self-employed people unable to work because of coronavirus measures is “woefully insufficient” and has advised the Bar Council to challenge the government’s criteria.

According to the Law Gazette, in an open letter to the chair of the Bar Council more than 100 junior barristers described the government scheme as “unjust” because financial aid is not being offered to workers who do not have 2018/19 self-employed tax returns that reflect current earnings.

As it stands, the support package currently enables self-employed workers who earn up to £50,000 a year apply for a grant worth 80% of their average monthly profits. In a statement to the BBC, Sunak said: “There is nothing we can do for people with no tax return… We have to use the database of people we know about.”

Junior barristers responded that the criteria is “an unnecessary barrier to the equitable application of the scheme”. They also said that the scheme is unfavourable towards a number of self-employed individuals, including those who became self-employed in the 2018/19 tax year and now earn less than they did previously.

As well as requesting that the Bar Council urgently raise the “woefully insufficient” package with the government, the open letter also suggested that any newly self-employed individuals should be permitted to depend on their 2019/20 tax return, which they can file from April 2020.

Despite not formally responding to the chancellor’s announcement, the Bar Council has confirmed that it is “analysing the practical impact of the chancellor of the exchequer’s measures… for the self-employed, especially those at the very junior end and those at the publicly funded bar”.