THE Universal Credit uplift of £20-per-week will be extended for a further six months, Rishi Sunak confirmed in his Budget announcement.

The Chancellor also said that working Tax Credit claimants will also be given more support for the next six months, with a one-off payment of £500.

He also said the minimum wage will increase to £8.91 an hour from April.

On apprenticeships, Mr Sunak said: “I’m doubling the incentive payments we give businesses to £3,000 – that’s for all new hires, of any age.”

The move comes as Rishi Sunak said it will take the UK and the whole world a “long time to recover from this extraordinary economic situation”, telling MPs: “But we will recover.”

The global coronavirus pandemic has called unprecedented damage to the UK academy. The Chancellor said more than 700,000 people have lost their jobs since March 2020 and the economy has shrunk by 10%, the largest fall in more than 300 years.

He told the Commons: “First, we will continue doing whatever it takes to support the British people and businesses through this moment of crisis. Second, once we are on the way to recovery, we will need to begin fixing the public finances – and I want to be honest today about our plans to do that. And, third, in today’s Budget we begin the work of building our future economy.”

Rishi Sunak said the forecasts show the response to Covid-19 is “working”, adding: “The Office for Budget Responsibility is now forecasting, in their words ‘a swifter and more sustained recovery’ than they expected in November.

“The OBR now expects the economy to return to its pre-Covid level by the middle of next year – six months earlier than they previously thought. That means growth is faster, unemployment lower, wages higher, investment higher, household incomes higher.”

The Chancellor said the OBR expects the economy will be 3% smaller than it would have been in five years’ time because of the coronavirus crisis, but that the economy is forecast to grow this year by 4%, by 7.3% in 2022, then 1.7%, 1.6% and 1.7% in the last three years of the forecast.

Rishi Sunak said Covid-19 has done “profound damage” to the economy and the forecasts make clear that “repairing the long-term damage will take time”.