THE extension of the furlough scheme until March is not down to the English lockdown, a government minister has said.

Yesterday chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the scheme, which ended on October 31, would be extended until March next year.

In a statement, the chancellor said: "To give people across the UK certainty over the winter, I can announce today that the furlough scheme will not be extended for one month – it will be extended until the end of March.

"Employees will receive 80 per cent of their usual salary for hours not worked, up to £2,500 a month."

Mr Sunak added: "All employers will have to pay for hours not worked is the cost of employer NICs and pension contributions.

“We will review the policy in January to decide whether economic circumstances are improving enough to ask employers to contribute more.”

This is what the chancellor announced.

When Wales entered the firebreak period Mark Drakeford had asked Mr Sunak for early access to the Job Retention Scheme for Welsh businesses, but his request was refused.

The chancellor also refused to extend the furlough scheme in Wales.

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The first minister said: "Furlough is crucial for businesses.

"But Rishi Sunak said he wouldn't extend it in Wales when we asked.

"He also said no when we asked him to bring forward the Job Support Scheme to help businesses - we even said we'd pay the difference.

"It is now clear he could have said yes."

However, the UK Government's Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, has denied that the furlough scheme was only extended due to a change in circumstances, with England going into a second national lockdown.

Asked on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland radio show about the timing of the announcement – as Scotland entered new levels of restriction and with Wales coming out of a circuit-breaker – he said: “No, I don’t accept that it has changed because of England – the job support scheme is for the whole country.

“The scheme was moving into the Job Retention Scheme … and at that point, when we saw us getting back into more difficult, harsher economic conditions through the lockdown, the Chancellor adapted the scheme.

“This is a fast-moving health crisis, an evolving position, and we have to evolve our approach to respond.

“With England going into lockdown there was a need to reset the Job Support Scheme, which, as you know, was designed when there was a lower prevalence of the virus during the summer.

“On Saturday October 31 that was the last day of the initial scheme, and then the initial scheme has been rolled forward and throughout Wales’s circuit-breaker it was receiving the full support.”