Dispatches: Temporada 2021, Episódio 1

2021 - 1: Britain's £400bn Covid Bill: Who Will Pay?

Lockdown Britain is enduring the sharpest economic nosedive for 300 years, with jobs and companies disappearing fast, government debt spiralling, and the Bank of England printing hundreds of billions of pounds to help make ends meet. Reporter Liam Halligan investigates the economic costs of the pandemic and what it could mean for our futures, revealing new figures on the scale of the damage and the shocking levels of joblessness the nation may soon face. He investigates the hard choices confronting the Chancellor and Prime Minister in the March Budget and the impact they could have on everyone. Will they gamble and borrow even more, hoping to boost jobs and generate economic growth to pay the Covid bill, or take the UK into austerity, with tax rises and spending cuts? As Halligan reveals, both options are fraught with danger.