Bees nests are very common in properties during the warmer months of the year. With there being various different types of bees visible in the UK, it can be tricky to know how to remove a nest if you find one in your home. Here is how to remove nests depending on the type of bee it is.
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Nests normally survive for about two to three months before the original queen dies. However, if the nest is successful this can cause multiple problems if you find one in your home.
There are more than 250 species of bee in the UK but the most common include the Honey Bee, the Bumblebee, Tree bees and Masonry bees.
Honeybees are the providers of honey in the UK and rarely present problems as pests.
However, feral swarms can set up in your home in locations like chimneys and wall cavities.
They are very small and vary in colour from golden brown to almost black.
The most common problem they can present is when they swarm. They typically home in trees before swarming off again within a day or two to find a more suitable home.
Bumblebees are often larger and fluffier than other bees and come with different colours on the end of their tails.
Their nesting sites are normally underground, in places like under the shed and in compost heaps. Some make nests in thick grass, while others can make nests in bird boxes, trees and lofts.
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Tree bees are often brown in colour while their abdomen is black and their tail is white.
This type of bee commonly establishes a nest in bird boxes, parts of buildings, and the sound of these bees can be very loud.
So how do you get rid of a bees nest in your home?
The British Pest Control Association (BPCA) advises to leave bees nests alone because they are endangered. Therefore, they suggest different avenues before considering eradication.
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Leave them alone
They say that bees don’t cause a problem to your property, nor will you be in danger of being stung if you do not get close to them.
After the summer season, most bees will go away and not return to the same nesting site again.
Relocation
The BPCA recommends leaving a rest if it is outside or underground as they shouldn’t cause a problem there.
In places like bushes, trees and sheds then you should contact a local beekeeper or pest controller to relocate the nest.
If you suspect you have honeybees and they are causing you problems then they recommend you use a swarm collector. In most cases, they will come and collect the swarm free of charge.
Eradication
Only if the location of a nest is dangerous and removal not possible, should you consider this option.
This decision will depend if it is possible to close the entrance to the nest after treatment. You should use a trained professional in this scenario and they will have the knowledge and access to a range of insecticides.
For bumblebees and tree bees, blocking up access points will help other bees from entering and getting contaminated.
For honey bees, it is essential that entrance points are blocked off, and if possible remove all the honeycomb. Failure to do so will cause robber bees to find the infected honey and take it back to their hive, which will contaminate it.
If you do have a bees nest present in your home then it is advised to keep your distance but also enjoy them, as they are endangered and BPCA suggest that they are fascinating creatures, especially while working.
You can’t prevent a bees nest appearing but you should keep an eye out as catching them in the early stages will help methods of removal become much easier.
Sports legend and basketball icon Michael Jordan has joined prominent names in the Black community in regards to the murder of George Floyd.
Jordan’s manager and spokeswoman, Estee Portnoy released his statement via social media: “I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry. I see and feel everyone’s pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough.”
He continued, “I don’t have the answers, but our collective voices show strength and the inability to be divided by others. We must listen to each other, show compassion and empathy and never turn our backs on senseless brutality,” Jordan added. “We need to continue peaceful expressions against injustice and demand accountability. Our unified voice needs to put pressure on our leaders to change our laws, or else we need to use our vote to create systematic change. Every one of us needs to be part of the solution, and we must work together to ensure justice for all.”
He concluded, “My heart goes out to the family of George Floyd and to the countless others whose lives have been brutally and senselessly taken through acts of racism and injustice.”
Jordan, who is the subject of ESPN’s critically acclaimed docuseries The Last Dance, is one of many cultural figures, networks, and media entities in the past week who have denounced racism, police brutality, inequality and the protection of Black lives.
President Donald Trump on Sunday said the U.S. will designate anti-fascist protesters known as antifa as a terrorist organization amid nationwide protests over the recent death of unarmed Black man George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.
Trump, who announced his intentions on Twitter, blamed “radical left anarchists,” as well as the media, for stirring up trouble in various cities and urged local leaders to shut their demonstrations down “before it is too late!”
“It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!” he tweeted Saturday after demonstrators gathered outside the White House over Floyd’s death and the president’s response to it. Many chanted “Black lives matter,” “I can’t breathe” and “No justice, no peace.” Some threw items at police and destroyed local property.
The protesters had “little to do with the memory of George Floyd,” Trump said, adding that they “were just there to cause trouble.”
An American Civil Liberties Union official, responding to Trump’s terrorism call for antifa on Sunday, called it “abused and misused.”
“As this tweet demonstrates, terrorism is an inherently political label, easily abused and misused. There is no legal authority for designating a domestic group. Any such designation would raise significant due process and First Amendment concerns,” said ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi in a statement to HuffPost.
Professor Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law similarly slapped down Trump’s plans, tweeting: “The United States of America has no legal authority to designate *any* domestic entities as ‘terrorist organizations.’”
The FBI considers domestic terrorism to be “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”
The U.S. officially designates only foreign terrorist organizations, and supporting such organizations can trigger federal terrorism charges. Domestic organizations — from antifa to the Ku Klux Klan — enjoy broader First Amendment protections unless members of those organizations violate specific federal statutes.
Still, the federal government has broad powers to investigate organizations it considers criminal enterprises if officials see evidence of a conspiracy to break federal law. The Trump administration is suggesting an aggressive approach against left-wing protesters.
Trump’s comments, which failed to acknowledge the events that sparked the nation’s ongoing upheaval, came as White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien denied that there is a problem with systemic racism in the nation’s police forces.
“There are some bad apples in there. There are some bad cops that are racist, and there are cops that maybe don’t have the right training. … And they need to be rooted out,” O’Brien said in an interview Sunday with CNN.
Attorney General William Barr also backed Trump’s depiction of the demonstrators in a statement on Sunday that accused them of “exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate, violent, and extremist agenda.
“It is time to stop watching the violence and to confront and stop it,” he said, a message that appeared to mirror the Black Lives Matter movement’s own “call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism.”
“This violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,” Barr said while imploring state and local leaders to use law enforcement resources and the National Guard where warranted.
Antifa is not one organization but rather a loosely linked collection of groups of protesters who take on right-wing demonstrators, sometimes physically, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Its participants “believe in active, aggressive opposition to far right-wing movements. Their ideology is rooted in the assumption that the Nazi party would never have been able to come to power in Germany if people had more aggressively fought them in the streets in the 1920s and 30s,” the ADL’s website said.
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New York City’s finance industry won’t recover from the devastation wrought by Covid-19 until 2026, according to an analysis by software firm ThinkIQ that ranks U.S. employment markets.
The NYC region lost about 8% of its finance jobs this year, down from its peak of more than 800,000 last August. Coronavirus, which has killed at least 21,000 New Yorkers so far, isn’t the culprit in all of those cuts. But the lockdown stemming from the illness caused a domino effect on everything from rents to mortgage payments.
The finance sector spans industries ranging from banking and securities to real estate and insurance. Most Wall Street firms pledged not to cut staff during the pandemic, but Bloomberg reported last month that Cantor Fitzgerald was planning to lay off hundreds of workers due to the virus.
ThinkIQ, based in Aliso Viejo, California, uses 10 key economic indicators to rank U.S. employment markets — including job and wage growth, demographics and educational attainment. New York ranks No. 1 in population but doesn’t fare as well in other metrics such as wage increases (No. 47) and job growth (No. 143).
New York was rated the world’s leading financial market by the Global Financial Centres Index by Z/Yen Partners in collaboration with the China Development Institute and according to a survey from Duff & Phelps.
The city that never sleeps has shown its resiliency multiple times in the last 20 years, including from the Great Recession. ThinkIQ predicts that the employment level will be almost back to 2019 levels in six years.
Most industries will take years to recoup. Employment in the leisure and hospitality arena, for instance, is expected to reach only about 90% of its 2019 level by 2026, the latest year in the forecast.
The data primarily pertains to activities in March, which had only a few days under the Covid-19 lockdown. For April , hence, CGST collections could be much lower, fear analysts.
Central goods and services tax (CGST) collection stood at Rs 5,934 crore in April, a fall of 87 per cent compared with the Rs 46,848 crore collected in the same month last year, according to the official data.
The data primarily pertains to activities in March, which had only a few days under the Covid-19 lockdown. For April , CGST collection could be much lower, fear analysts.
CGST is levied on intra-state supply of both goods and services by the central government. The slowdown in revenue collections could be attributed to the nationwide lockdown and the deferment of payment as well as return filing during March-May.
From the data, it is not possible to deduce the overall GST collection since state GST (SGST) is usually higher than CGST.
For instance, CGST stood at Rs 19,183 crore and SGST at Rs 25,601 crore in March 2019-20. The Budget has pegged CGST at Rs 5.8 trillion for 2020-21, which means Rs 48,333.33 a month on average. However, the Budget figures are outdated due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and the resultant lockdown.
Abhishek Jain, tax partner, EY, said the due date of GST collection for activities in March was April 20. However, as part of the Covid-19 relief measures, the government had offered a 15-day interest-free grace period till May 5.
“It seems, many taxpayers have opted for the grace period and hence the low collections,” he said. He said the larger impact was expected to be witnessed in collections for activities in April.
Then, there is an issue of integrated GST, as it is not clear as to how much of it is allocated to the states. IGST stood at Rs 9,749 crore in April. It was, however, much higher than minus Rs 564 crore in April last year. The minus figure represents more allocation to the states than collected by the Centre.
“Without the final IGST settlement among states and the Centre, accurately determining the excess deficit in state GST revenues would be difficult,” Jain said.
The government had earlier announced that registered GST taxpayers with aggregate annual turnover less than Rs 5 crore can pay taxes and file GSTR-3B due in March, April, and May by the last week of June 2020. For such taxpayers, no interest, late fee, and penalty were to be charged. Those with annual turnover of at least Rs 5 crore can pay taxes till May 5 for March without any interest cost.
However, if it is paid after this date and by June 30, an additional 9 per cent interest rate will be levied. This interest rate is half of the current rate of 18 per cent a year.
The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) was established by the government and opened in mid-March to assist those who are not in PAYE employment. After much debate as to whether the scheme was to be extended, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed an extension. Those who are eligible for the scheme will now be able to claim a second and final grant in August – worth 70 percent of their average monthly trading profits.
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This will be paid out in a single instalment, which is set to cover three months’ worth of profits, and will be capped at £6,570 in total.
The government has confirmed there has so far been 2.3 million claims worth £6.8 billion on the SEISS scheme.
However, with the extension of the scheme, many people may be looking to apply either for the first time or once again.
The government has confirmed the first grant, worth 80 percent of profits, can still be applied for, however, this must be done by Monday, July 13.
It is, however, important to note that self-employed people do not have to have applied for the first grant in order to receive the second.
Those who are eligible are likely to have been contacted by HMRC, however, it may be the case self-employed people need to check once again if they have not received correspondence.
In this case, Jim Harra, the Chief Executive of HMRC has urged those who believe they are eligible to check online.
Here, they will find the SEISS eligibility checker, which will let them know if they are entitled to receive the sum.
The government has stated eligibility is also dependent on whether a person can prove their work or business has been adversely affected by the coronavirus crisis.
A person’s average trading profit must be less than £50,000 a year, and they must earn more than 50 percent of their total income through self-employment.
If a self-employed person believes they are eligible to claim after being rejected from the calculator, they should contact HMRC directly.
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In order to apply, self-employed people must access the dedicated portal found on the government’s website.
Those who are able to receive the grant will be required to use their Self Assessment Unique Taxpayer Reference alongside National Insurance number.
Also needed is a Government Gateway User ID, UK bank details including sort code and account number, alongside name and address.
Those eligible should have the money paid into their selected bank account within six working days of submitting a claim.
The government has said further guidance on the second grant is set to be published on Friday, June 12, so self-employed people should mark this date in their diary.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak commented on the extension to SEISS and the changes to government schemes.
He said: “Our top priority has always been to support people, protect jobs and businesses through this crisis. The furlough and self-employment schemes have been a lifeline for millions of people and businesses.
“We stood behind Britain’s businesses and workers as we came into this crisis and we stand behind them as we come through the other side.
“Now, as we begin to re-open our country and kickstart our economy, these schemes will adjust to ensure those who are able to work can do so, while remaining amongst the most generous in the world.”
A gauge of China’s manufacturing activity slipped in May, underlining the slow pace of recovery from the first quarter slump.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index declined to a worse-than-expected 50.6 from 50.8 a month earlier, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Sunday. The non-manufacturing gauge rose to 53.6. Readings above 50 indicate improving conditions.
The data indicate that China’s recovery from the pandemic shutdowns risks faltering after an initial rebound supported by pent-up demand. While industrial firms are mostly back at work and output is rising again, a collapse in orders has sent a shock-wave through the sector.
“Global demand is still weak even when lockdowns are relaxed in some major cities around the world,” said Iris Pang, greater China chief economist with ING Bank NV in Hong Kong. “The employment level was in contraction again in May, and that highlights the layoff of factory workers after factories have faced continual withdrawal of export orders.”
The sub-index of new export orders climbed to 35.3, manufacturing employment softened to 49.4, while non-manufacturing employment was at 48.5.
The government unveiled its stimulus package for the year at the National People’s Congress meeting which concluded last week, and scrapped a hard growth target in light of the uncertain global economy, while pledging targeted monetary easing and trillions of yuan in extra infrastructure spending.
Domestic factories have brought some workers back to staff production lines after the shutdowns in the first quarter and are increasing production, but many are facing a build up in inventories and uncertain orders. Others have not recovered, meaning bankruptcies and unemployment are expected to rise.
“The current global epidemic situation and the world economic situation are still grim and complex, and foreign market demand continues to shrink,” Zhao Qinghe, an economist with the statistics bureau, said in a statement accompanying the data release. Despite small increases in the manufacturing new export order index and import index this month, they “remain at historically low levels,” he said.
— With assistance by Sharon Chen, Yinan Zhao, and Lin Zhu
‘COVID-19 will not stop the expansion of China’s ‘infrastructure power’.’
Mikko Huotari, executive director, Mercator Institute of China Studies, a Germany-based institute on China, is an expert on China’s foreign policy, China-Europe relations and global (economic) governance and competition.
He has published works on China’s rise as a financial power, trade and investment relations with Europe as well as on geopolitical shifts related to China’s emergence as a global security actor.
“Xi Jinping has managed to quell those that could undermine his position,” Huotari tells Aditi Phadnis.
China’s economy is expected to contract severely as a result of the pandemic. What are the implications of this contraction for Europe, the US and the rest of Asia?
Europe and the rest of the world will not ride this crisis on the back of China’s growth as it did a decade ago.
But China will rebound faster than many other countries.
The depth of the valley in China’s growth outlook will be a key driver of uncertainty for neighbouring Asian economies.
If the crisis in China turns into a structural one and business risks accumulate, some Asian economies may benefit from relocation.
What happens to China’s Belt and Road initiatives now, given that it is not able to throw free cash at countries around the globe any more? Will its global ambitions face a setback? Or will it now be even more determined to strengthen its presence in the absence of competitors? Are we looking at a global China resurgence?
The first important question will be whether and under which conditions China will allow for debt relief to loan recipients and BRI clients across the world.
The financial conditions for a massive expansion in BRI projects are clearly not in place in China.
Major financiers such as the China Development Bank will also be requested to help with domestic recovery first.
What COVID-19 will not stop is the structural trend towards the expansion of China’s ‘infrastructure power’, its SOEs and coordination of ‘credit spaces’ by its State-led financial system.
Even as he attempts to stabilise China’s global position, President Xi Jinping will face many domestic challenges: From those who question his ‘victory’ over the pandemic and those who seek to undermine his presence as the supreme leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Do you see a struggle for power breaking out?
There are continuous struggles for power happening behind the curtains in Beijing. Just recently, a well-connected senior figure from the security apparatus fell.
But Xi Jinping has managed to quell those that could undermine his position.
He, and the CCP more generally, seems to be coming out of this crisis strengthened.
What will matter most for his reign will be economic performance going forward and this will suffer a hit.
A hallmark of Xi Jinping’s current spell of leadership was his battle against corruption. Do you see this slowing down?
There are no indications for that — what we see is an institutionalisation of party disciplinary and control mechanisms over other spheres of the society, business and politics.
Reconstructing the domestic economy is not going to be easy: State-owned businesses will need funds and morale, private sector firms will need encouragement. How do you see China handling this?
So far, the leadership was quite restrained with regard to a potential massive stimulus programme.
Everyone in Beijing is fully aware that it is thin tightrope to walk balancing stimulus and stability with the necessary structural reforms.
As the crisis becomes more entrenched as a sustained weakness of demand (internal and global), this balance will be harder to hold.
They will face choice then between letting the private sector and foreign companies drive the recovery – more reforms and more opening up — or doubling-down on State-led development and stability.
The latter is more likely.
In many countries around the world, the pandemic has led to a revival of nationalism. China has its own challenges in managing nationalities. What do you predict for its handling of Xinjiang, for instance, or Hong Kong?
There was already a strong trend towards less tolerance vis-a-vis ‘dual identities’; be it in Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Macao.
And this has now accelerated.
The leadership in Beijing seems to be on track to create new and hard facts this year in Hong Kong to prevent any further distancing from the mainland and resistance.
Vis-a-vis Taiwan, we also see a tougher line emerging.
And it remains, unfortunately, fully secret how the COVID-19 crisis has or is affecting Xinjiang, including the situation of minorities in the ‘re-education camps’ there.
Geza Csemer will never forget how a group of men clad in black uniforms charged at his family outside his home in eastern Hungary.
Hundreds of far-right vigilantes occupied the tiny town of Gyongyospata, tucked away amid rolling hills and vineyards an hour’s drive from Budapest. They marched through the neighborhood dominated by the Roma minority, vowing to paint their houses red with their blood.
“My three children were clutching my hands tightly,” Csemer, 45, who now leads the town’s Roma community, recalled during a recent visit. “Then I saw they had all wet their pants, that’s how scared they were.”
The chilling events of 2011 were the start of what would turn Gyongyospata into a symbol of the ethnic tension that’s rarely far from the surface in so many parts of eastern Europe. With growing evidence that the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately hitting marginalized communities across the continent, Roma groups are fearful that wounds are being opened up again.
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A decade ago, anti-Roma extremism was flourishing in the wake of the global financial crisis. A spate of murders targeting the minority had shaken the nation. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, had returned to power and vowed to crush vigilantism and improve the prospects of regions hit hardest by the economic meltdown.
By that time, Gyongyospata’s primary school was already segregated—in practice—along ethnic lines, like an estimated hundreds of others across Hungary. Roma students were largely bunched in remedial classes, often with several grades lumped together. Most non-Roma were on the upper floor, off-limits to those below. It lasted until 2014.
A court case over compensation for Roma pupils in the town was only settled this month, awarding about $5,000 to each of 60 students. Yet instead of some sort of catharsis, the ruling brought the ethnic tension that boiled over in 2011 back to the surface—only this time the town’s Roma residents blame Orban for fanning the flames rather than cooling emotions.
Already before the coronavirus arrived in Hungary, Orban focused attention on Gyongyospata as he looked for a bump in the polls after a rare political setback in local elections.
In a televised press conference in January, Orban said the town’s Roma stood to gain “free money while the rest of us toil.” This month, as tens of thousands of people lost their jobs in the first wave of the pandemic, Orban reacted to a supreme court verdict that rejected a challenge to scrap cash compensation for segregated students.
“We can’t have a situation where in order for the minority to feel at home, those from the majority should have to feel like foreigners in their own cities, villages and homeland,” Orban told state radio on May 15. “This can’t happen and won’t happen as long as I am the prime minister. This country, after all, belong to the natives.”
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It was all too familiar for the Roma, a group whose roots often trace back more than 1,000 years to northern India. They have traditionally borne the brunt of prejudice in modern day eastern Europe as far-right groups regained a foothold following the collapse of communism 30 years ago. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Slovakia and Bulgaria sought to quarantine Roma areas.
Orban had pledged to tame those forces, establishing law and order and accelerating an economic recovery. The popularity of far-right parties in Hungary indeed receded, paramilitary groups were disbanded and Orban—before the coronavirus pandemic hit—was on his way to meeting a pledge to create a million new jobs by this year, benefiting Roma who lost out when industries collapsed with the demise of the communist regime.
But in their place came a powerful government that harnessed militant nationalism as Orban built what he calls his “illiberal democracy” within the European Union. Dissenters, whether political parties, civil society groups or even universities, were soon investigated, sidelined or ousted.
Orban turbo-charged his influence by starting to rule by decree for an indefinite period in late March, ostensibly to fight the virus, triggering alarm in Brussels that the country was descending into a de-facto dictatorship. Orban this week said he would end emergency rule in June, though his parliamentary super-majority means his agenda is unlikely to be affected.
Hungary this year became the first EU nation to be downgraded from a democracy to a “hybrid” regime, somewhere between a democracy and an autocracy, in an annual report by Washington-based group Freedom House.
Gyongyospata’s Roma community is worried they have become a political punchbag again. Csemer compared their situation to refugees, whom Orban shunned as a centerpiece of his political agenda over the past five years. The policy turned him into Europe’s ringleader for nativist forces across Europe.
“We feel like we’re the new targets, the new ‘immigrants,’” Csemer said.
Barnabas Maka, the owner of the pub next to the post office, echoed Orban’s rhetoric. He blamed “the liberal world and its values that dominate in the west” for magnifying the conflict. When it comes to the school, he said Roma children “can’t behave in a classroom.”
Beatrix Csemer, a relative of Geza, was one of the students who said she suffered discrimination in the town’s primarily school. She said it came in many forms, from Roma being deprived of IT classes to being barred from using the school’s indoor swimming pool.
“They took my childhood away and no one can return that to me,” said Beatrix, 28. She said the feeling of being unwanted in school led her to terminate her studies after finishing primary school in 2006.
Her predicament is all too common among Hungary’s estimated 900,000 Roma, whose pre-virus jobless rate was already almost five times that of the rest of the population in the country of just under 10 million people.
Many work in the informal labor market, with little hope of receiving government assistance as the economy heads toward a recession this year. Four-fifths of employed Roma only had a primary-school education, compared with one-fifth for non-Roma, according to the statistics office in Budapest, making them among the most vulnerable in an economic downturn.
In Gyongyospata, many of the Roma live in ramshackle homes along a potholed street in the lower section of the sloping village. Orban’s successive administrations did manage to improve livelihoods largely through the trickle-down effects of one the continent’s highest economic growth rates.
An EU report on May 20, though, said policies favoring the more well-off magnified disparities. Any gains may be quickly reversed during the pandemic, it said.
Education remains a particular concern. As schools switched to distance-learning during the pandemic, many Roma households found themselves facing the choice of paying bills or putting food on the table, according to Vivien Brassoi, a researcher at the European Roma Rights Center in Brussels. Buying a laptop or upgrading an Internet connection, if there was one to begin with, wasn’t the priority, she said.
“The danger is that authorities will now say that the Roma just couldn’t keep up with schoolwork and recommend that they repeat grades or be taught separately in remedial classes, reinforcing segregation that’s already prevalent at many schools,” Brassoi said.
As rights activists hailed the supreme court ruling as a model for seeking reparations and eliminating segregation at other schools, Orban simultaneously pledged to craft legislation making it impossible for other victims of alleged school discrimination to receive monetary compensation.
Meanwhile in Gyongyospata, the fight for equal rights has come full circle.
Despite an official end to segregation six years ago, many non-Roma parents decided to take their children out of the local school, which was recently renovated with the help of EU funds. The new academic year may be the first to have a first-grade class of only Roma, according to Geza Csemer.
“The ethnic divide is only getting deeper,” he said. “I’m afraid things are only going to get worse.”
Unemployment throughout the UK has grown with figures now reaching almost 2.1 million as the coronavirus crisis has wreaked havoc on work across the country. Research from the Institute for Employment Studies has also shown particular areas of the UK – such as Blackpool, Liverpool, Hull and Belfast- have been adversely affected by unemployment during this crisis. Across the country, the Office for National Statistics also reported 856,500 people signed up for Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance within April.
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It is feared that as the Treasury moves to begin to wind down its supportive schemes in the next few months, that many Britons could be left worse off or even unemployed.
There have already been reports of companies making employees redundant, despite the government-backed furlough scheme.
And there are concerns these cases could grow as Britain returns to work in the coming weeks and months.
However, for those who received their P45 before April 5, 2020, there is one way to potentially claim extra funds from the government.
Joseph Ivory, Personal Tax Manager at Dyer and Co has explained the process of tax relief for those who have recently left work.
Speaking to Express.co.uk, he said: “If a person is not employed at the end of the tax year, it may suggest they have ceased employment earlier in that tax year.
“Normally, if you cease employment part way through the tax year, you are likely to be in a repayment position because of tax codes.
“Tax codes operate on the basis that you will be in employment for the whole tax year so your allowances are often spread over 12 months.
“But say, for example, your employment ended eight months into the tax year, you have effectively not claimed enough allowances because it has been spread over the whole year. That would also generate a refund.
“If anyone is currently out of work, and has received their P45 prior to April 5, then that is always worth checking and having a look. They are likely to have overpaid tax, which would generate a tax payment.”
Mr Ivory highlighted that the amount people receive will always depend on their tax code and their salary level.
There is no given formula for how much a recently unemployed person can receive, but it is based on personal tax allowances.
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In the most recent tax year, the standard personal allowance stood at £12,500, spread over the 12 month tax period.
Working on this figure, Britons could effectively earn just over £1,000 per month tax free.
For those who do not work the full tax year, they will not have claimed their allowance, despite being eligible for it.
Mr Ivory added: “The Revenue will eventually pick up these allowances and repay that to them.
“However, it might be six or seven months down the line, whereas if they approach someone to sort this out, it can be pretty instant.”
To claim tax relief, Britons must have paid tax within the year, and will receive tax relief based on what is spent, and their personal tax rate.
Claimants must submit a claim within four years of the end of the tax year where the money was spent.
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Healthy Bees Plan: Beekeeping is on the rise in Britain 
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