Wednesday newspaper round-up: Furlough scheme, inflation, universal credit

More than 70% of private firms have furloughed staff in response to the coronavirus lockdown, according to the latest survey of Britain’s struggling business sector. The British Chamber of Commerce said responses to its weekly Covid-19 tracker poll revealed the proportion of firms that have furloughed at least some staff increased to 71% this week, from 66% last week. - Guardian

Commercial property landlords are starting to tighten the screw on retailers including Boots and Matalan for failing to pay overdue rent, in some cases starting legal action to reclaim money they are owed. Boots, which has continued to trade throughout the lockdown, has been criticised with other businesses, including Travelodge, for refusing to pay second quarter rent, which was due at the end of March. – Guardian

Inflation slipped lower in March on the back of falling clothes and motor fuel prices, official figures show. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation decreased to 1.5pc in March. Analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics predicted that the headline rate of inflation would slow to 1.6pc. - Telegraph

The Treasury is under growing pressure to expand its employee bailout scheme as the number of people on taxpayer-funded leave climbed to 1.3 million. A total of 185,000 firms applied to furlough their workers by the end of the first day of the scheme’s operation, HMRC figures showed, as it emerged that three in five businesses have less than three months of cash in reserve. – Telegraph

More than 1.5 million people have applied for universal credit since social distancing measures were introduced a month ago, underscoring the scale of the crisis in jobs and incomes. The increase since March 16 has been six times as large as the normal average of 235,000 a month. There was a huge take-up in the ten days after that date, when claims rose to 950,000, almost ten times as many as there are normally in a two-week period. – The Times

Councils that have failed to distribute billions of pounds of emergency grants have been accused of “inexcusable” delays that are putting companies’ survival at risk. Figures show that some local authorities have managed to deliver only about a tenth of the funds meant to provide a cash lifeline to businesses hit by the fallout from coronavirus. – The Times