Rejected petition Allow suspected COVID-19 infection to be reason for entitlement to ESA and UC.

Self-employed people must be able to self-isolate during this extraordinary outbreak without fear of losing their businesses and livelihoods. The Secretary of State for Health has made it clear that self-employed people cannot be entitled to statutory sick pay (SSP).

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SSP is paid by employers, and the self-employed, by definition, have no employer and so have no entitlement. The Secretary of State for health has stated that they will need to claim payment through the existing benefits system, as there is no time to put a new sickness benefit in place. It must, therefore, be made possible for self-employed people to simply claim universal credit or contribution-based ESA, with no waiting time, if they need to stop work due to suspected COVID-19 infection.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

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You can find out more about coronavirus and how you can protect yourself and others here:

NHS website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
UK Government website: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

You can read NHS tips to help if you are worried about coronavirus here: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-anxiety-tips

You may also be interested to know that because of the large number of petitions that have been started in relation to coronavirus, the Petitions Committee has been questioning the Government about its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Find out more and watch the Committee put questions suggested by petitioners to Government Ministers and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/326/petitions-committee/news/145767/committee-question-deputy-chief-medical-officer-and-ministers-on-coronavirus-response/

Read letters asking further questions of Government Ministers: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/326/petitions-committee/publications/3/correspondence/

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 16 March 2020
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