* Sunak expands help for businesses, self-employed
* Hard-hit hospitality sector to get new grants
* Sunak had previously resisted calls for more help
* Labour opposition says Sunak must get ahead of crisis
(Adds details, reaction from Labour Party, Resolution
Foundation)
By David Milliken and William James
LONDON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi
Sunak was forced to offer more financial help on Thursday to
businesses grappling with a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic,
which looks increasingly likely to derail the economic recovery.
Sunak told parliament that the government would shoulder
more of the burden for paying employees' wages for businesses
that are still open but experiencing difficulties, and offer
more money to hospitality companies.
The move -- Sunak's third major announcement in the space of
a month -- marks a further turnaround after he resisted calls to
expand the generosity of government support schemes.
Opponents have said it was obvious that more help would be
needed and that it should have come sooner.
Britain - the worst-hit European nation during the COVID-19
pandemic with more than 44,000 related deaths - is now seeing a
second wave of the virus, recording 26,688 new cases and 191
deaths on Wednesday.
"I've always said that we must be ready to adapt our
financial support as the situation evolves, and that is what we
are doing today. These changes mean that our support will reach
many more people and protect many more jobs," Sunak said.
He told lawmakers the economy was under "enormous strain"
and that more jobs would still be lost.
Sunak did not give the cost of the new measures. Government
borrowing in the first half of the financial year is already
more than six times higher than before the COVID pandemic.
Some sectors are now in dire straits. An official survey
published earlier on Thursday showed more than a third of
hospitality companies say they are at risk of going bust.
Sunak said he would offer a new grant to hospitality
businesses worth up to 2,100 pounds ($2,750) per month that can
be claimed retrospectively to August.
He also tweaked the Job Support Scheme designed to dissuade
businesses from making people redundant and instead keep workers
on reduced hours.
Businesses will now have to pay 5% of the cost of wages for
unworked hours, compared with 33% previously, and only need to
employ staff for one day a week -- 20% of normal hours, rather
than a third before.
Following criticism that the government had done too little
to help self-employed people, Sunak said he would double the
next grants for the self-employed from 20% to 40% of their
previous incomes.
His Labour Party opposition counterpart Anneliese Dodds said
Sunak had failed to get ahead of the crisis.
"This is becoming like a long-running television show --
'The Winter Economy Plan: Series 3'. But you know the twist is,
it didn't last the winter, it didn't do enough to help the
economy, and it wasn't a plan," she said.
The head of the Resolution Foundation think-tank, Torsten
Bell, said Sunak had done the right thing by expanding help for
companies.
"Doing it earlier, given the obvious flaws, would have saved
more jobs, but at least we've got to the right place 10 days
ahead of the Job Support Scheme coming into effect," Bell said.
($1 = 0.7637 pounds)
(Writing by Andy Bruce; Editing by Sarah Young and Catherine
Evans)
