RISHI SUNAK has suspended VAT payments for three months as the government unveils its huge financial package to help British workers and businesses through the coronavirus crisis.
The Chancellor has relieved the pressure on firms by deferring the next quarter of VAT payments, worth more than £30 billion.
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Appealing to the British people to pull together, Mr Sunak vowed to "stand behind" the UK's workforce and its employers as he unveiled the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
The government's intervention comes as the the UK's COVID-19 death toll hit 177.
Mr Sunak said: "To help businesses keep people in work, I'm deferring the next quarter of VAT payments.
"That means no business will pay VAT from now to mid June. You'll have until the end of the financial year to repay those bills.
£30 BILLION BOOST
"That's a direct injection of over £30bn of cash to businesses equivalent to 1.5 per cent of GDP."
A loan scheme to help businesses will also now be interest free for a year, up from six months.
The Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme will be available from Monday.
Mr Sunak assured businesses "we in government are doing everything we can to protect you" as he rolled out Treasury's battle plan.
Pubs restaurants and leisure centres across the whole of Britain will shut "as soon as possible" tonight amid the spiralling coronavirus crisis.
Mr Sunak added: "We want to look back on this time and remember how in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort and we stood together.
"It's on all of us.'
Speaking alongside Mr Sunak, Boris Johnson made the unprecedented announcement this evening ordering all venues to shut their doors as the Government tries to battle the outbreak.
The government will also cover up to 80 per cent of workers wages up to £2,500 a month through grant funding.
It would over wages backdated to March 1 and be open for at least three months with "no limit" on the amount of funding available.
Mr Sunak described the bumper package he unveiled today as "unprecedented in the history of the British state".
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