The money can’t be spent on-line, only in shops and restaurants, etc. The Government want to restart Retail and Hospitality.
Conundrum: For a vulnerable person (and their family), is £500 worth the risk of catching Covid 19 from a member of the unmasked, mingling masses?
Reading between the lines, I think they also want the streets looking ‘normal’ in newspaper pictures in order to lure back the Tourists. Britain no longer has a coal or steel industry, our car manufacturing is looking worse by the day, and Finance is/will be relocating en masse to Germany and Holland. Tourism and Hospitality are pretty much all we had/have left.