BIK advice

Strikes me that the employer should write to you removing your right to drive the car; you have been removed from the insurance etc etc. That way it's no longer your company car, and it is on your drive until such time as the lock-down ends when the insurance will be reinstated and your right to drive it also...

Doubt it... And they should SORN the car as well to prove that you cannot drive it.

I'm not sure how things would apply in this emergency, but there are clear rules and provisions for just such in normal circumstances.

We have been round this before in your BIK musings, and it involves (I think) clear prohibition in writing from your employer of using the vehicle for anything but business use, and absolutely no use whatsoever for personal purposes (e.g. no diverting to the Supermarket even if it is on the way back home). I don't think the process was particularly onerous.

I'm pretty sure there is a good HMRC paper on it (or it is clearly contained in a slightly wider paper). I'd do a quick search if I were you.

(If you don't find it, I'll do a search when I have a spare minute )

Thanks T&E.

Haven't we all...jeez this is going to be hellish. I know it's for all the right reasons, but I'm really not good at inactivity. Hey ho.

...it is, and for longer than most people have got their minds round. 

If there is a build-up of medical capability, and if the Italian figures start dropping, then we may see recourse to "waves", where we get a week or two of more freedom, followed by further lockdown. Rinse and repeat. There isn't a hope in hell of seeing the term out like that as is (it would take far too long), but any improvement in drugs to ameliorate the worse symptoms, antibody testing, supply of medical kit, etc. is what the Government is hoping for to be able to alter the strategy.

Of course, there is the holy grail of a vaccine, and just a minor hope that countries such as China and Italy experience significantly lower, and ultimately traceable (re-)infection rates once any controls are slackened (though no-one can give a reason why that might happen).
 
Had a fairly long walk in the forest this morning, and it was very, very quiet. (deer for the second time this year) We are lucky it's on the doorstep or I would also be going stir-crazy.

There is much better conformance to the new restrictions. The house opposite however, has been having an extension built for the past year (It isn't really an extension, it's a complete rebuild and expansion and then knock down most of the original). Much of the work is being done by the owner (who has his own, non-building company, and is patently doing much of it in company time, using company equipment and people. The rest is obviously at "mates rates" or as fill-in at odd hours by subcontractors. The road opposite has been lined with vans for weeks. This morning, only one turned up at 7am, but surreptitiously parked round the back of the house for a change, invisible from the road. I know the rules aren't yet clear, but obviously guilty!    (They had most of the extended family round this morning as well  )

I have to say that if I were paying tax on the basis that I had personal use of the car, but wasn't making (able to make) personal use of the car, at £500 per month or whatever I'd also be looking for easy ways to avoid it. Using it only for business is an entirely valid way of doing so at all times, not just in these strange days. SORNing it for a while is a potential solution whilst it is getting no business use either.  

I'm considering SORNing the 'van, which would save me considerably less than that, but at the moment swallowing hard at paying road tax I could otherwise quite legitimately avoid, just in case there is a short-term lift in restrictions and we can get away. If not, then at renewal time it will certainly be SORNed. 

The tax on the cars is in the wrong order really, otherwise I would already have SORNed one of them, and the same thing might apply at renewal time (subject to servicing and MOT arrangements at such time), though not to the Smart, which is zero road tax anyway.