On the TV programme "Question time" last night someone suggested that financial help for businesses could be easily made by allowing them to make VAT payments one month in arrears. That seems like a good idea to me.
I don't know what the current timing regime is but I think that this, whilst it would help business, would in effect mean that at the time of introduction the government (us) would lose a month's worth of VAT- and I think that would be a huge sum to forgo.
I didn't see the programme, buildersmate, but assumed that the suggestion was to give an extra month, since it clearly can't be the case that payments currently have to be made immediately. But it was more likely to have been, as you say, a suggestion from someone who doesn't know the current rules