The failure to support the low paid and vulnerable to isolate has been an act of gross negligence, Unite, the UK's leading union, said in response to the TUC's  demand for a living sick pay for all.

Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary who led negotiations for Unite with the TUC on the furlough agreement for workers said:

“The failure to support the low paid and vulnerable to isolate has been an act of gross negligence. The government was told time and again that sick pay is too low and too rarely available. Workers going sick can expect only £96 a week to survive on, less than £14 a day to keep them and their families - and even this cannot be expected as two million workers earn too little to even qualify for this pitiful sum of money.

"The reality is that the government failed Britain’s workers and our economy because they chose to side with their ideological hatred of the social security that we all pay into and not with the working people of this country.

“Sick pay in this country is the shame of Europe. Our workers and their families deserve better, and this union will fight for that because when workers are protected we are all protected.”