On 24th November 2025;- When the UK Covid-19 Inquiry opened Module 9 examining the Economic Response to the pandemic one of the clearest and most direct interventions came from Mr Sam Jacobs, representing the Trades Union Congress (TUC). His statement laid out, without equivocation, that millions of workers were put at risk because the UK economy entered the pandemic with a labour market already weakened by insecurity, low pay, and the absence of robust safety nets. And when the crisis hit, government schemes simply did not reach everyone who needed them.
For the Excluded, a community formed directly because of these gaps Mr Jacobs’ evidence is not only relevant: it is validating.
Below is a full, structured summary of what he told the Inquiry.
The Labour Market Set the Terms of the Crisis
Mr Jacobs opened by stating plainly that Covid-19 did not expose a healthy labour market it exposed a fragile one, where too many workers were already at risk. The TUC described an economy shaped by:
- long-term low pay,
- insecure work,
- limited union coverage,
- erosion of employment rights, and
- a social security system that no longer provided genuine security.
The result was a workforce ill-prepared for an economic shock of Covid’s scale.
This placed millions in immediate danger the moment restrictions began.
Labour Market Interventions Were Essential But Not Equally Distributed
The TUC acknowledged that furlough and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) were important tools. However, their design, structure and implementation created winners and losers from day one.
Government approaches were shaped by Treasury preferences, not by social partnership, nor by meaningful consultation with unions or representatives of excluded workers.
The absence of consultation was, in the TUC’s view, the first of several critical failures.
“Falling Through the Gaps” Was Not Accidental It Was Systemic
Jacobs’ most important contribution is his clear articulation of who fell through the gaps, why, and how the UK Government failed to address these gaps even when they were well-known.
The TUC highlighted several categories of excluded workers:
- Newly self-employed workers, who lacked the historic data demands of SEISS.
- PAYE freelancers and contingent workers, whose income fluctuated or was paid through agencies and umbrellas.
- People who had recently changed jobs, and therefore could not evidence the “continuous employment” furlough requirement.
- Workers with mixed PAYE and self-employed earnings, disqualified due to arbitrary thresholds.
- Company directors, barred from meaningful support despite taxation through dividend models common in small businesses.
- Gig economy workers, whose employment status was obscured by platform arrangements.
The TUC made clear that these exclusions were not marginal. They were the predictable product of a labour market increasingly dependent on precarious work and a tax system that treated many workers as businesses while giving them none of the associated protections.
These workers had been raising concerns for years before the pandemic. Covid merely brought the consequences into the open.
Treasury Decision-Making Was “Opaque, Centralised and Slow”
One of the TUC’s strongest criticisms related to the Treasury’s control over economic decisions during the crisis.
Jacobs emphasised that key interventions were:
- developed behind closed doors,
- released with little warning,
- subject to abrupt changes, and
- insufficiently informed by frontline experience.
This contributed directly to the persistence of gaps in support.
Even worse, the Treasury stayed wedded to rigid eligibility rules long after it was clear that thousands were being excluded.
“The Need to Fill the Gaps” A Central Theme of the TUC Evidence
Jacobs explicitly told the Inquiry that the TUC had warned repeatedly about shortcomings in the schemes. Their message was simple:
filling the gaps was essential both for fairness and for public health.
The exclusions were not only an economic problem they were a health problem. Workers who received no support were:
- more likely to continue working in unsafe conditions,
- more likely to take on multiple insecure jobs, and
- more likely to breach guidance simply to survive financially.
This meant government policy undermined its own public health goals.
A Weak Social Security System Magnified the Harm
Jacobs was unequivocal: the UK’s social security system was not capable of absorbing the shock when millions lost work during lockdowns.
The TUC described Universal Credit and related benefits as:
- too slow,
- too punitive,
- too conditional, and
- fundamentally inadequate as a substitute for income.
For excluded workers, this meant there were no safety nets at all.
They did not qualify for furlough.
They did not qualify for SEISS.
And the welfare system could not support them.
This is precisely the structural reality ExcludedUK / Excluded Scotland was created to challenge.
Insecure Workers Were Hit the Hardest
Of all the groups represented by the TUC, insecure workers whether agency, gig economy or variable-hours staff suffered most.
The TUC highlighted:
- lack of sick pay,
- lack of job security,
- lack of stable income, and
- widespread fear of dismissal for complying with isolation guidance.
Many could not access furlough because their employers refused to participate, or because their employment status left them unprotected.
Jacobs stressed that “insecure work” was one of the defining features of pre-pandemic Britain and one of the major factors that allowed the virus to spread among low-paid workers who simply could not afford to stay home.
Lessons for the Future and Warnings for Government
Jacobs concluded with a set of clear and pointed lessons that the Inquiry should incorporate into future policy recommendations.
- Emergency schemes must be designed with social partnership
The TUC argued that governments must work with unions, worker-representatives, and civil society organisations to ensure no group is left out by design.
- Income protection must be universal, simple and fast
Schemes should be built on people-focused principles, not on Treasury preferences for administrative neatness.
- Labour market reform is essential
The levels of insecurity that existed pre-Covid made millions more vulnerable than necessary.
- Social security must be rebuilt
A system incapable of protecting the excluded is not fit for purpose in a national crisis.
- Decision-making must be transparent
Opaque Treasury processes contributed to prolonged hardship and unnecessary exclusion.
Conclusion: “The gaps were known and they were allowed to remain.”
Sam Jacobs’ evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry could not have been more relevant to the Excluded community.
The TUC’s assessment is clear:
- The exclusions were predictable.
- They were avoidable.
- They were caused by pre-existing structural weaknesses.
- They were prolonged by rigid Treasury decision-making.
- And they inflicted profound and lasting harm.
By setting this out so explicitly on record, Jacobs has ensured that the experiences of the millions who were left out newly self-employed workers, freelance PAYE staff, limited company directors, gig workers, people between jobs, and many more are recognised not as isolated anomalies, but as consequences of policy choices.
His statement is a stark reminder that any future system must be built around people, not processes.
