The Chancellor has ruled out a return of the furlough scheme - and said the coronavirus vaccine rollout was the best protection against imposing new lockdown restrictions.
Speaking on the Sunday morning media round ahead of announcing his Autumn Budget on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said a return of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was 鈥渘ot on the cards鈥, adding the vaccine rollout was the 鈥渂est line of defence against having to move to put in place any restrictions鈥.
He told BBC One鈥檚 The Andrew Marr Show: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not on the cards because we don鈥檛 envisage having to impose significant economic restrictions in the way that we had to over the last year, and the reason for that is, although we鈥檝e always said the winter was going to be challenging, the big change is the vaccine rollout which is our first line of defence and the best way to protect us through the winter is to get the booster campaign, making sure that that鈥檚 firing on all cylinders, everyone gets their booster jab when they鈥檙e asked.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the best line of defence against having to move to put in place any restrictions.鈥
Rishi Sunak also said the Budget will be 鈥渁bout looking to the future and building a stronger economy for the British people鈥.
He told the Andrew Marr Show: 鈥淭hat means strong investment in public services, driving economic growth by investing in infrastructure, innovation and skills, giving businesses confidence, and then supporting working families.
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"Those are the ingredients of what makes a stronger Budget and that鈥檚 what we will deliver next week."
Asked if there would be a return to austerity, the Chancellor said: 鈥淎s I said, one of the elements of building a stronger economy is having strong public services and you will see that next week.鈥
