10 U-Turns Boris Johnson's Government Has Been Forced To Make During The Pandemic
It’s been another week where Boris Johnson’s government abruptly changed its mind on a major policy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s a breakdown of all the about turns, back tracks and missed targets that have left the public frustrated.
Housing evictions
On Friday, the eviction ban was extended for four weeks. Ministers also decided landlords will have to give the majority of tenants six months’ notice to protect vulnerable renters hit by the coronavirus crisis from a winter eviction.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced the move after charities warned there could be mass evictions around Christmas and said tens of thousands of outgoing tenants could be unable to access affordable homes, prompting a “devastating homelessness crisis”.
A-levels
After five days, education secretary Gavin Williamson on Monday finally admitted defeat and ditched the controversial A-level algorithm that had seen 100,000 students marked down.
Ministers announced they will allow for results to be based on teachers’ predicted grades for their students, rather than a “standardisation model” that saw the A-level grades of almost 40% of students downgraded from what they had originally been awarded.
It followed criticism from students and headteachers and complaints from dozens of Tory MPs, and came more than a week after the Scottish government was forced into its own U-turn after a backlash about the moderation system used there.
Immigration health surcharge
The government eventually decided to waive heavily-criticised NHS fees being charged to migrant health and care workers on the coronavirus front line.
The government was due to hike the immigration health surcharge from £400 to £624 this October, but in May said it will be scrapped as the Covid-19 crisis gripped the NHS.
The sum had been payable to all overseas workers to use the NHS and from this autumn would have seen a family-of-four hit with a bill as high as £2,500 a year.
