My company (small) had a meeting today that they might close for a few weeks and would be putting provisions in to work from home, but people would need to use their own laptops etc. The cynic in me suspects this rushing it out fast and in a less than ideal way is a scheme to avoid having to pay people for the office closing if they aren't at work as working from home has been made possible.

I'm curious as to what happens if something goes wrong here? The limited guidance I have seen is that if a workplace closes temporalily staff should still be paid unless work from home is offered reasonably, but what if someones equipment breaks or they have internet issues or something else happens that physically prevents them from working, would they stil be entitled to pay?

It left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth that they opened the meeting with basically 'we aren't going to pay you if the office closes', but I'm wondering how far this extends if reasonable attempts to work fall flat and the company can't remedy it.

If its relevant the contract does state weekly hours but also says subject to reasonable notice they may vary working hours so I highly doubt that would stand here.