Boris Johnson takes 'full responsibility' but balks at apologizing for care home comments

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday he took full responsibility for the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak, denying that he was trying to blame care workers for the spread of COVID-19.

Johnson has been criticized for saying some care homes did not follow procedures to stem the spread of COVID-19 deaths and was repeatedly asked by Opposition Labour Leader Keir Starmer to apologize.

The prime minister did not do so.

"The last thing I wanted to do is to blame care workers for what has happened, for any of them to think that I was blaming them," Johnson told Parliament.

"When it comes to taking blame, I take full responsibility for what has happened. The one thing that nobody knew early on during this pandemic was that the virus was being passed asymptomatically from person to person in the way that it is, and that's why the guidance and procedures changed."

Starmer responded: "That's not an apology, and it just won't wash."

Johnson on Monday had told reporters, "We discovered too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures in the way that they could have, but we're learning lessons the whole time."

With close to 45,000 coronavirus-linked deaths, Britain has been hit harder by the pandemic than any other European country. For the worst-affected sectors of an economy that shrank by 25 per cent over March and April, recovery remains a long way off.

It has been estimated that some 20,000 of the deceased were care home residents, and in his response to Starmer, Johnson said that 257 care home employees have died from COVID-19.

Jobs, green energy measures announced

Finance Minister RishiSunak told Parliament on Wednesday that the government will seek to head off an unemployment crisis by paying bonuses to employers to bring workers back to their jobs from the state's coronavirus emergency furlough scheme.

Under the plan part of a broader program of measures employers would be paid 1,000 pounds ($1,705 Cdn) for every worker who returns to their job after the furlough scheme expires at the end of October, Sunak told Parliament.

"I want every person in this House and in the country to know that I will never accept unemployment as an unavoidable outcome," Sunak said.

"We haven't done everything we have so far just to step back now and say, 'Job done.'In truth, the job has only just begun."

Sunak is already on course to take state borrowing to levels not seen since the Second World War as the government subsidizes ninemillion jobs on the furlough scheme equivalent to more than one-third of private-sector workers and supports the incomes of twomillion self-employed.

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The prime minister warned citizens to act 'responsibly' or risk another lockdown if the virus starts to run out of control.

Sunak, a 40-year-old former Goldman Sachs analyst who became finance minister in February, also announced a 2-billion pound ($3.4 billion Cdn) fund to create six-month work-placement jobs for unemployed young adults aged 16 to 24,and the largest ever rise in partly government-funded apprenticeships.

As well, the government will spend a further 3 billion pounds ($5.1 billion Cdn) to improve the energy efficiency of homes and public buildings, which it hopes will support more than 100,000 jobs.

He also raised a threshold for a tax on property purchases to 500,000 pounds ($853,000 Cdn), four times its current level.