section_path: Impact by region or country/Europe/United Kingdom
section_name: United Kingdom
paragraph_text: United Kingdom
  
  On 19 March 2020 the Bank of England cut the interest rate to a historic low of 0.1%. Quantitative easing was extended by £200 billion to a total of £645 billion since the start of the Great Recession. A day later, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced the government would spend £350 billion to bolster the economy. On 24 March non-essential business and travel were officially banned in the UK to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2. In April the Bank agreed to extend the government's overdraft facility from £370 million to an undisclosed amount for the first time since 2008. Household spending fell 41.2% in April 2020 compared with April 2019. April's Purchasing Managers' Index score was 13.8 points, the lowest since records began in 1996, indicating a severe downturn of business activity.
  
  By the start of May, 23% of the British workforce had been furloughed (temporarily laid off). Government schemes were launched to help furloughed employees and self-employed workers whose incomes had been affected by the outbreak, effectively paying 80% of their regular incomes, subject to eligibility. The Bank estimated that the UK economy could shrink 30% in the first half of 2020 and that unemployment was likely to rise to 9% in 2021. Economic growth was already weak before the COVID-19 pandemic, with 0% growth in the fourth quarter of 2019. On 13 May, the Office for National Statistics announced a 2% fall in GDP in the first quarter of 2020, including a then-record 5.8% monthly fall in March. The Chancellor warned it was very likely the UK was going through a significant recession.
  
  HSBC, which is based in London, reported $4.3 billion (~$ 4.99 billion in 2023) in pre-tax profits during the first half of 2020; this was only one-third of the profits it had taken in the first half of the previous year.
  
  On 12 August, it was announced that the UK had entered into recession for the first time in 11 years.
  
  During the pandemic, exports of many food and drink products from the UK declined significantly, partly because the hospitality industry worldwide experienced a major slump. According to news reports in February 2021, the Scotch whisky sector alone had experienced £1.1 billion in lost sales.
  
  Tourism in the UK (by visitors from both the UK and from other countries) declined substantially due to travel restrictions and lockdowns. For much of 2020, and into 2021, vacation travel was not permitted and entry into the UK was very strictly limited. Business travel, for example, declined by nearly 90% over previous years. This not only affected revenue from tourism but also led to numerous job losses.