Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct that we have a severe outlook for this year, but that OECD report also forecasts us to have one of the strongest recoveries of the large countries it looked at. If two years are put together, we emerge close to the top of the table.

The noble Lord asked for some of the reasons why we will be particularly badly affected. I can point to two: one is the services nature of our economy, which has been particularly affected by the lockdown; the second is the relative openness of our economy, which means that we are more affected by changes in global demand.

[Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]]

My Lords, numerous whistleblowers are now reporting that quite a number of SMEs are struggling to get people back to work safely. Will the Minister support proposals by my colleague Ed Davey MP and some significant business names to scale up the Health and Safety Executive so that, free of charge, it can assist SMEs with risk planning and mitigation, and will the Government fund the HSE quickly to recruit retired professionals to meet the urgent need?

[Baroness Penn]

My Lords, the Government are providing more support to businesses to reopen safely. A specific fund is available for getting high streets open safely. We are also putting additional funding into the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that any enforcement action necessary can be taken.