By the end of the 2020-21 financial year, the Government will most likely owe more in debt than the value of everything produced in the UK economy in a year. That’s a pretty staggering thought, but then again, this crisis has generated all sorts of implausible numbers – mass job losses, plunging economic activity, colossal furlough support – that would have addled most minds just a few months ago.

It’s the sort of stuff that even now, in brief moments to pause and reflect, no doubt leaves Government ministers weak at the knees. The Covid-19 health emergency has forced them to impose this recession on the economy through lockdown measures, which goes a long way towards explaining why the Government has also stepped in to support consumers and firms on an unprecedented scale.

But as Chancellor Rishi Sunak has made clear, it can’t go on forever. From August, 1.1 million employers will have to start contributing towards the £14 billion monthly bill of keeping 8.7 million workers on furlough.

Support is being removed gradually, but for those businesses that remain closed or trading at severely reduced capacity, making any sort of contribution will range somewhere between difficult and impossible. More redundancies will mount up upon the 69% surge in April’s claimant count – the biggest monthly increase since records began – that took the number of unemployed in the UK to 2.1 million people at the last official count.

This has led to a lot of discussion about the need to target extended support to certain industries such as the hospitality and tourism sectors, which are at the back of the queue when it comes to unlocking the economy and are therefore set to lose the majority of the crucial summer trading season. The Government has proven reasonably agile in amending policy as this crisis has unfolded, so there could be scope for further tinkering around the edges on this front. But faced with a bill that the UK budget watchdog recently estimated would exceed £132bn, the primary direction of travel remains firmly towards bringing an end to emergency spending.

Faced with forecasts predicting the worst recession in 300 years, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly working on plans to re-set the Government’s agenda for the “new reality” after the coronavirus pandemic. As a central part of that, the Chancellor has been tasked with drawing up options to bolster the economy after the Government withdraws its vast package of financial support.

The Prime Minister is believed to be preparing to lay out his vision in a key speech at the end of this month. This will inevitably have to tackle questions about how and when to pay the coronavirus piper, and who will foot the bill.

There is an argument there need be no great rush to immediately stamp down on debt, and that any move towards austerity would be counter-productive in the longer-term. Indeed, the clampdown on public spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis was a major drag leading to one of the weakest economic recoveries on record.

Quizzed this past week by MPs from the Treasury Select Committee, former Chancellors Alistair Darling and Philip Hammond both cautioned against raising taxes in the short-term, which runs the risk of turning the recession into a depression.

Lord Darling went so far as to suggest that a limited-time VAT reduction would help stimulate activity, which was exactly his tactic when he was resident in No. 11 as the 2008 banking crisis came to bear on the wider economy. Mr Hammond, who served as Chancellor under Theresa May from 2016 to 2019, agreed that the UK could carry very high debts for a period of time.

“I don’t think there’s any economic logic to increasing taxes in the short term,” he told MPs. “I think we all accept that the UK as a credit-worthy, mature, larger economy can carry more debt in the context of the short-term crisis.”

This, however, doesn’t appear to be the kind of thinking coming out of Downing Street at the moment. Although it’s early days in the Government’s effort to pull together its new fiscal stance, initial reports suggest discussions have focused on whether there is potential to raise tax in some of its various guises.

As the human impact of the pandemic has rallied public backing for health care workers, an “NHS tax” in the form of higher income tax or increased national insurance contributions could be politically palatable. Business taxes may also rise, as internal polling is said to indicate there is public support for increased corporate levies.

Although tax rates for median earners in the UK are the lowest among any large European economy, the political acceptability of this is meagre. Other options could include a windfall tax on sectors that have profited during the pandemic.

With regards to the latter, technology companies could prove a softer target than drug companies or supermarkets. Though food retailers did experience massive surges in demand during the initial weeks of the pandemic, panic buying has long since trailed off while the additional costs of health and social distancing measures continue.

And as University of Nottingham economics professor John Gathergood has pointed out, the demographics of the virus may also play an important political dynamic going forward: “The pain of lockdown imposed to reduce mortality and morbidity among a well-pensioned and comfortable older generation will mostly be felt by the young and economically insecure. There are likely to be calls for those who benefited most from the lockdown to contribute most to paying for it.”

If that is the case, then measures mooted and rejected in the recent past could once again be on the table. Professor Gathergood points to the end of pensions tax relief, the introduction of a wealth tax for liquid assets, and increased taxes paid by the self-employed as a few examples.

Perhaps the Chancellor will heed the advice of his predecessors and hang fire on any dramatic hike in taxes during the next few months. But if not, the Prime Minister’s overriding desire to see through his broader political mission – which has been derailed by the pandemic – means political expediency will largely dictate who picks up the tab for Covid-19.