Liverpool Mayor concerned over local businesses with new lockdown

The Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has insisted more financial support is needed, despite Health Secretary Matt Hancock announcing today in the House of Commons a £7m pledge from the government.

Liverpool is now being placed under a local lockdown, and Anderson told BBC Merseyside of his serious concerns for businesses over the lack of financial support.

Anderson said, “It’s nowhere near enough, £7m wouldn’t be enough for Liverpool alone, let alone across the city region.

“It’s got to be in the hundreds of millions that we need to support businesses to survive just for a matter of weeks.

“A local lockdown is fine if it helps curtail the virus but there has to be a local furlough financial scheme for local businesses to survive.

“The city and the city region are in a desperate position financially and we need that financial support and we need it now.”

This comes as the Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs in the House of Commons that Liverpool and the wider Merseyside region, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Warrington are now ordered to into social lockdown.

From this weekend the new social lockdown restrictions will take place affecting more than 1m people.

In a statement Hancock told MPs in the House of Commons, “We will provide £7m to local authorities in these areas to support them with their vital work.”