'I've been left behind, like millions of others'

Five years on from the Covid lockdown, some of those who lost out financially are calling on the government to compensate them.

For many the pandemic that gripped the UK and the world seems like a distant memory.

After all, it was back in 2020 when lockdowns, mask wearing, clapping for carers, and tuning into weekly government updates on the spread of the virus were part of everyday life.

But while some 11.7 million UK employees were furloughed, their jobs and wages protected by a government scheme, there were some who didn't get help and are still paying the price, with financial hardship still affecting them today.

Tim Pravda from West Sussex was 44 at the time of the outbreak.

He'd been working on some of Britain's most famous festivals and events and was living in his own flat in London.

He told the BBC: "I don't feel like we're all moving on together because I've still been left behind, like millions of other people.

"In live events we were the first to close and the last to reopen, and to this day I'm still losing work."

Chris Andrews, 68, runs an independent publishing company in Oxford, having started the business in 1982.

Reflecting on lockdown he says: "I produce calendars and guidebooks and diaries and no-one was going to buy the sort of things we do online.

"You don't buy a postcard in advance of going to the place. We were trading one week and shut down the next."

They are among the so-called "excluded" and didn't qualify for financial support.

ExcludedUK was established in May 2020 to represent the 3.8 million UK taxpayers excluded from parity of government financial support during the pandemic.

They are calling for:

1. An apology from the government "so this injustice is recognised" and assurance that it will never happen again
2. Parity of support
3. Acknowledgement of loss of earnings/profit and consequential loss

"In the pandemic I was having sleepless nights, worrying all the time how long is this going to go on for," Tim recalls.

"They said 'oh no, you can't get furloughed because you're on a short term contract', and I was like right, we are really in trouble here."

As company directors, furlough didn't apply to Chris and his wife.

"The government refused to cover dividends payments," he says.

"Had I been an employee, I would have been perfectly and legitimately furloughed 80%, probably £2,000 to £2,500 a month."

He says he had to remortgage his home, and his health suffered as a result.

"It became a rapidly descending spiral. We had to cash in our main pension, I'd saved into it for 40 years.

"We've definitely lost £10,000 a year off the pension we would've had, and that's just because the government wouldn't give us a small amount of money to keep limited company directors going.

"I know there are 700,000 limited company directors who were excluded."

Chris says his health deteriorated too.

"Every morning I'd wake with a wildly beating heart," he explains.

"I lost about a stone in weight. I'm still on beta blockers because I have no regular heartrate.

"I'm never going to recover that money, unless the government does wake up and actually start to compensate people for what they have lost."

At the time the Treasury of the then-government defended its record.

It said it helped businesses across the UK get through the outbreak and acted "quickly to deliver one of the most generous and comprehensive packages of support in the world worth an initial £160bn".

"It has been widely recognised that without the actions of the government, our economy would have been hit harder," it added.

The current Treasury said in a statement: "Decisions on eligibility for Covid-19 financial support were taken by the previous government.

"Those ineligible for the schemes may have been eligible for other elements of financial support provided by the previous government.

"The current government has no plans to assess or pursue a financial compensation scheme."

Chris says: "I think the government has to take responsibility for the mistakes that were made and although they weren't the ones in power at the time, central government is the only one that can look after this."

Tim says: "I lost my home and everything and I slept on a mattress on the floor at my parent's house.

"It obviously has put me in massive debt, which I'm paying off, and it's very mentally straining."

He adds: "What I've said all along is that I want a lifeline, and what everyone else got, and then we can all get back onto an even keel, and everyone in the country can move on."

You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.