Spending Review 2020 and OBR Forecast

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government are committed to spreading opportunity across the country, especially in places where people feel they have not had the same fair crack of the whip. Our levelling up fund is designed to correct that. Today, her local area will be benefiting from discounted funding from the Public Works Loan Board to help with local infrastructure projects. That is a symbol of our commitment to her area and her constituents.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Chancellor said that my hon. Friends were wrong about the number of working people excluded from financial support. It is the freelancers and the self-employed who have not had any support who think that he is wrong. In the Liverpool city region, the Mayor, Steve Rotheram, has found a package to support some of the people who have been excluded. When will the Chancellor step up, support Steve Rotheram, Andy Burnham and the other Labour leaders in local government, and put a support package together? He has to admit that these people have not qualified for furlough, self-employed support or business grants, and most of them are not eligible for universal credit. When is he going to end this burning injustice?

[Rishi Sunak]

Some £1 billion has been provided to local authorities across the country to support their businesses and local economies as they see fit. That funding has, of course, been made available to the hon. Gentleman’s local authority. If that is how it chooses to use the funding, that is up to the local authority. We have provided a range of different support, whether loans, access to our more generous welfare system or mortgage holidays that, in the end, one in six mortgage holders used. Those are all ways by which we have tried to do our best to provide support to the largest number of people possible.

Covid-19: Economy Update

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am always grateful to hear from Mayor Andy Street. Andy has rightly put on the agenda the situation for businesses, especially hospitality businesses, in tier 2 areas, which my hon. Friend represents, and wanted me to be aware of what was happening. I am glad that today’s set of measures will make a difference to both my hon. Friend and Andy’s wider set of businesses and, I know, to many other businesses across the country.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Chancellor says that he will support only viable businesses. Kim runs a wedding photography business. She is self-employed and works from home and, like millions of people, she has not qualified for any of the measures that the Chancellor has announced. Weddings will need photographers again, and Kim already has 71 bookings for next year. Why is the Chancellor’s message to Kim, and millions like her, that he thinks her business is not viable?

[Rishi Sunak]

If the hon. Member wants to write to me with Kim’s particular circumstances, I would be happy to see what various things we have done that may be of benefit to her and her business.

Covid-19 Economic Support Package

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I was just about to go on to say that the Government’s current stance is costing jobs and leading to reduced business confidence. If we continue as we are, without taking control of the public health situation, we will see a worse situation for jobs and businesses in our country. It appears that that will be the only intervention that I will receive.

It is clear that blocking a circuit breaker does not make sense for the health of our population or for our economy. Government Members need a reality check. One in four people in our country are subject to localised restrictions. We have already experienced a record rise in quarterly redundancies. Without action, we face the prospect of infections rising yet again, with more and more areas coming under localised restrictions and the Government eventually being forced into more national restrictions in any case. Every week of that inaction will hit business and consumer confidence, costing more jobs and livelihoods, with more businesses going to the wall. The question is not whether we can afford a circuit breaker. The question is whether we can afford to continue with a Government who duck taking hard choices until they are forced into them and who seem unable to stand apart from their chaotic lurching from week to week to assess what our country needs and take decisive action.

That circuit break must be used to fix test and trace, devolving it to local areas, so that we can protect our NHS, get control of the virus and start building economic confidence back up again, and it must be accompanied by support for jobs and businesses. We stand ready to work with the Government to ensure that that is put in place, so that no one is pushed into poverty for doing the right thing.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

SAGE warns that a circuit breaker is unavoidable. I wonder whether the Prime Minister’s words will come back to haunt him in a couple of weeks’ time as he admits that and does yet another U-turn. The best restrictions in the world will work only if people have financial security and can afford to comply. Is it not the case that offering only 67% of pay to somebody on minimum wage does not cover 100% of the bills that they have to pay? That is something that needs attention, as is the £1.3 billion underspend for all those people who, so far, have had no help in this crisis at all.

[Anneliese Dodds]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on it. It appears that experts are very clear that we are facing an unavoidable situation of rising infections that will not be stemmed unless action is taken. They predict that the Government will be forced into this position eventually, so why cannot we have decisiveness at this stage. Why can that nettle not be grasped now when it will be more effective, rather than leaving this unavoidable choice for many weeks into the future when it will be less effective? I will come to the other issues raised by my hon. Friend about the paucity of targeted support in a moment.

Time and again, Labour has had to drag Ministers to this House to explain what they will do to tackle the job crisis, and, time and again, those Ministers have either ducked the question entirely or come up with a short-term scheme that needs to be patched up again within weeks. The British people deserve better. To protect jobs—be that during a circuit breaker or under the Government’s new three-tier scheme—we need a functioning system of wage support, a proper safety net to prevent people falling into poverty, and economic support for local areas that goes hand in hand with the imposition of additional restrictions. Right now, we do not have any of those things.

Financial and Social Emergency Support Package

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I will look into the question of whether there should be any relation between business loans; I am certainly not aware of one myself. It ought to be possible for people to claim business loans as she has described. As regards the business interruption loan scheme, borrowers are not required to pledge their house, but there may be some requirement for personal guarantees of other kinds, which is what one would expect, and which will open up lending in other ways. The Economic Secretary is very engaged on this issue. There are 40 lenders involved, so ironing out the guidance with all of them, to ensure a consistent picture, has not been the most straightforward thing one could imagine.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I will read out what Barclays is saying to businesses about personal guarantees:

“Loans will need to have a director’s guarantee, or in the case of partnerships and sole traders, you will be personally liable”.

If a person’s only asset is their home, pledging it and being liable amount to the same thing. Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with that problem? That quote was read to me by a person from a company that will now have to lay off its staff and close, and so will not be eligible for the furlough scheme. This will hit workers as well as businesses.

[Jesse Norman]

I cannot comment, obviously, on the specific circumstances that the hon. Gentleman describes, but I can certainly say that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury is working very closely with the banks to make sure that no business is forced to close as a result of coronavirus.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The badge on the Chancellor’s Twitter account says: “Stay At Home save lives”. I completely agree with the sentiment behind that message. A number of hon. and right hon. Members also have that badge on their Twitter accounts. However, if people cannot afford to stay at home, they simply will not do so. They will have to go out to find the money to put food on the table. That applies, as things stand, to very many self-employed people. It also applies to many people who have lost their jobs because of the financial downturn that has happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. People who do not qualify for sick pay and who have symptoms of the virus will also have to go out to find money, as will those who suffer as a result of the delays in universal credit, which have been so well described by many hon. and right hon. Members. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, it will also happen to those who have no recourse to public funds.

Health has to be absolutely paramount in everything that we say and do, by which I mean the health of the individual and their potential to pass on the virus to other people, especially to health workers who we need to look after the rest of us.

[Mr Dhesi]

Today, we have heard the sad and shocking news of the death of a 21-year-old lady in Buckinghamshire who had no underlying health conditions. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many individuals and employers out there who are under the misconception that those who are younger, or who have no underlying health conditions, will not suffer from this virus? They need to take heed of this story and look after the health not just of themselves, but of those around them.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. It is really, really important that everybody—no matter what their age or health condition—recognises that we are all at risk from this. But there are groups who are especially at risk, and we have an enormous responsibility to protect them as much as possible, including the health workers who we will need to look after us all.

If we want people to stay at home and to observe the 2 metres rule when they are out and about, we have to do everything in our power to make it as easy as possible for them to comply. Delivering financial security is crucial to ensuring that nobody has to go out unless they absolutely have to. I asked the Leader of the House earlier to pass on my point about the construction industry to the Prime Minister. I will make that point again now. There are too many people going on to construction sites that are not essential work. Such construction must stop, otherwise people will carry on going to work. Somebody who works away from home emailed me just this afternoon to tell me that their employer is saying, “I am only interested in the profits of my company”; they do not care about anything else. Those workers are being forced to go to work. If they do not, their pay will be cut and they will have nothing, and they will not be part of any income retention scheme if and when it is applied by that employer.

[Dawn Butler]

The mode of travel for construction workers going to work is often trains and the tube. The Minister and the Government talk about the trains and the tube system, and about how people should be staying at home. How can they marry the two? If we do not close the places where people go to work, they are going to travel on the trains. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and of course those trains and buses are needed by our health workers to get to hospitals. If they are infected by being in close conditions with people who have the virus and who are going to work—not just in construction sites, as this is true of call centres and a number of other places of employment, because of the behaviour of some employers—we run the risk of spreading the virus right across the country.

Health has to be paramount, but if that is to be the case, rent has to be covered. We cannot have people feeling that they are at risk of being evicted; that has to be taken away completely. I am afraid that the Prime Minister’s assurances earlier went nowhere near far enough in demonstrating that the Government are serious about no evictions because, as has already been mentioned in this debate, evictions are already happening.

People who are desperate will do desperate things. I am afraid that it does not finish with people going out to work to earn money to put food on the table. What will happen in those cases, in a few days’ or weeks’ time, where people simply have nothing left to feed themselves and their families? I do not want to paint a picture of too much disaster, but I am sure we can all imagine what might happen if people took it into their own hands to go and get food just to survive, if they do not have the means of paying for it. “Everything it takes” must mean that we do not get to that situation in the coming days and weeks, and giving people the financial security to ensure that that does not happen must be an absolute priority.

I want to talk about some of the practical steps. The behaviour of the banks, in saying that they will put up interest fees from 9% to typically 39%—is nothing short of usurious and extortionate. The same applies to the credit card companies. Where people cannot pay back their credit card debt, there must now be a case for a delay in the repayment of credit cards and a number of different kinds of loan.

There are still gaps in the job retention scheme; many workers will not qualify. A number of Members have mentioned charities. Charities are going to need to carry on working, and we are going to need them to carry on working because they provide essential services and are an important part of the answer in dealing with the health crisis.

[Catherine West]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the situation for religious charities in particular? In cases where there is usually a weekly collection, some mosques, churches and other faith gatherings are really struggling to pay their own bills because they are not getting that regular income.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about those charities paying their bills. The point that I was getting to was that they will not be eligible for the job retention scheme because they and their workers will have to continue working—quite rightly, and we will want them. Therefore, alternative arrangements are needed to pay their bills, to which she refers, and their wages, if they are to play their full part in providing the support that we all need them to.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham has covered universal credit in the technical detail that pretty much only he in this House can, and I thank him for that. Suffice to say that a constituent of mine said that, after three and a half hours on the phone, they were given a phone appointment for next Wednesday. They will then face a five-week wait before getting any money. They need the money now. They have no money; they need to put food on the table. That is typical of the kind of examples that we are all hearing, and it needs to be addressed.

That brings me to the self-employed. The Chancellor has made clear his preference for a targeted scheme—that applies to a number of the schemes that the Government are coming up with—that gives money to those in need. In normal times I would completely agree with that approach, but I am afraid that time is up. We cannot afford to wait any longer, and if a few people who do not need the money are given extra so that the vast majority—a far larger number—who need the money get it, and get it now, when they need it, so be it. That has to be the sensible way forward in this extreme emergency, and it is not without precedent in normal times. The entrepreneur’s relief gives money to very many people who actually do not need it, according to the Government’s analysis of the application of that scheme. If it is good enough for some wealthy entrepreneurs, it is certainly good enough for our constituents who are self-employed and, indeed, for constituents who need sick pay or universal credit now.

Then there is the behaviour of certain businesses—I can mention Virgin, Sports Direct and Wetherspoons. Travelodge, I believe, has already been mentioned for its behaviour in evicting homeless families. This must end. The Government must make it clear right now that any such behaviours that disadvantage people who will be put into difficulty cannot be tolerated. Intervention is needed, not just words from the Dispatch Box or on television.

I will quote the example of Village Hotels, because my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) asked me to do so. She has had a solicitor’s letter from Village Hotels for raising on social media what was sent to her by one of her constituents who is on a zero-hours contract. They have been told by Village Hotels that they will receive no pay and she has been told to take down the post, which is entirely true because she has quoted and shown a copy of the letter. Such behaviour by the company is completely unacceptable, and it should withdraw its letter to my hon. Friend. Her constituent and everybody in that position on a zero-hours contract needs to be the same position as every other member of staff at Village Hotels and everywhere else, so that they can be part of the job retention scheme. I hope that my raising this in the Chamber will enable a change of heart.

I really do not want to say what I am going to say next, but I have now heard from doctors who are saying that they believe, and they have had this confirmed by senior people in the health service, that the time is fast approaching when they will be forced to decide who lives and who dies. We know, I am afraid, that that must be true because of what is going on in other countries. That is why it is so important that we reduce the impact on the national health service and minimise infection. The points I have made and the examples I have given, like those of all hon. and right hon. Members, are designed to do just that. We have to make sure that people are financially secure and have somewhere to live, whether they are self-employed or unemployed; whether or not they have recourse to public funds; and whether they are renters, mortgage holders, homeless or rough sleepers. The “stay at home, stay safe” advice is absolutely right, and we must make it possible for everybody to follow it.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a real privilege to speak in this incredibly important debate. As I am, I think, the last speaker from the Back Benches, it is appropriate to start by paying tribute to the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor on the day of what may be their last appearances on the Front Bench. I regard both of them as comrades and friends, though I would not necessarily say that I have agreed with everything that they have said and done—but that is how it is in our great Labour movement. I particularly thank them for always bringing a deep care and concern for the most vulnerable in our society to the heart of our debates; for vanquishing austerity economics, which had such a grip on our political debate five years ago, and still has consequences for so many in our society today; and indeed for the way in which we are responding to the covid-19 crisis.

Like most Members here, I have been overwhelmed with emails from constituents—from a supply teacher who does not know how he will feed his family; from a plumber who feels that his health is in jeopardy, and feels abandoned by the Government; from a cancer survivor who needs to self-isolate, but does not know what she will eat on Monday; and from a circus owner who does not know whether her Newcastle-based circus will survive this crisis. Parliament should not be the only circus to survive the pandemic; I hope it is not disorderly to say that. It is really important that all our performers, and all our self-employed, of whom there are 5 million in this country, have the support that they so desperately need.

When I took the tube to Parliament today, I felt a bit of a fraud, because I did not feel like a key worker. I was not going to save lives. But when I thought about the impact of the Government’s delay and intransigence—I am sorry to have to use those words—in providing the support that is so desperately needed by freelancers and the self-employed, I realised just how much they need our voice. I have constituents who lost their jobs because the Chancellor delayed announcing the very welcome job retention package. The delay in respect of measures for the self-employed will not only cause lost jobs, but lead to deaths. The Minister shakes his head, but as we have heard in many excellent contributions, the absence of support for the self-employed is driving people to go to work when they should not, and to put themselves and others at risk, as well as causing enormous mental distress.

Parliament rises tonight, but I urge the Minister, Chancellor and Prime Minister to set out immediate measures to support the self-employed. Unfortunately, all those who are employed are not necessarily protected. We have heard again and again from Members of Parliament the desperate appeals from constituents whose employers are not protecting them from the coronavirus. I am going to name some from the emails I have received, and they can get in touch with me and explain how they are protecting their employees. DHL, the delivery service, is not offering any personal protection equipment to its deliverers and is not following the 2-metre guidance. Tolent builders are not following the 2-metre guidance. Serco and EE, which have many call centre employees in large rooms, are not following the 2-metre guidance. Santander is apparently bringing in contract workers to work on PPI, which I do not believe to be an essential service, and is not following the 2-metre guidance or social distancing. Then there is our very own Mike Ashley, the owner not only of Newcastle United but of SportsDirect, who, after claiming that SportsDirect was an essential service and finally—

[Bill Esterson]

It’s essential to his fortune.

[Chi Onwurah]

It is an essential service for his fortune, but not in this crisis. He finally agreed to close his shops, hiking prices online while still making employees come into empty shops to act as security.

The Government’s payroll support and job retention scheme are very welcome, but we must have greater clarity for businesses on what they need to do to stand by their employees, as the Prime Minister said. Any private sector bail-out must have strings attached to it. Banks were bailed out in the 2008 financial crisis and people were rewarded with austerity. In this crisis, we must champion the good businesses that are doing the right thing.

[Chi Onwurah]

The right hon. Gentlemen makes exactly the point that I was going to make. It is pleasing to see that that is at least agreed across the Opposition Benches, and I hope to hear a message from the Government that in this crisis, after this crisis, the people must be rewarded and not asked to bear the burden.

[Bill Esterson]

On the behaviour of the banks, I mentioned the 39.9% interest rates that the banks have announced that they will charge pretty much across the board—funny that, isn’t it? Does that not suggest that they are already embarked on exactly that approach of trying to make everybody else pay when they should be taking the opportunity to pay back for their role in the financial crisis?

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Without wishing to go into the financial crisis and the, in my opinion, very well deserved backlash against the financial sector, which continued to make profits while so many people felt the impact of that crisis, it now has the opportunity to demonstrate the social value and support it can provide in times of crisis and emergency, especially, as my hon. Friend says, for those who have taken out loans or credit cards and those who need loans. Many businesses are still saying to me that they are not getting the loans that they are promised, particularly the tech sector start-ups, which rarely have the assets that banks feel are necessary to offer such loans. We want greater corporate citizenship from the financial sector and from other businesses, too.

I applaud and echo what many of my colleagues have said about those who are suffering the most in this crisis, but my focus is on the impact of the digital divide in our country in relation to coronavirus. We know that access to and ability to use the internet is not evenly spread across our society. In the UK, data from the Office for National Statistics indicates that in 2018, 10% of adults said they did not have access to the internet at home, while 4.3 million had no demonstrable digital skills. That data also showed that 12% of those aged between 11 and 18 years reported having no internet access at home from a computer or tablet.

Since 2011, adults over the age of 65 have consistently made up the largest proportion of adult non-users of the internet. More than half of all adult internet non-users were over the age of 75. Across all age groups, disabled adults make up a large proportion of adult internet non-users.

In normal times, access to the internet improves hugely the chances of, for example, finding work. It also, as we have heard, makes it easier to access universal credit—in fact, it is essential to access universal credit—and it enables people to connect and communicate better with family, friends and the community. These are not normal times, however, and for the next few weeks and perhaps the next few months, social distancing is going to be the norm. Social distancing must be accompanied by digital coming-together, and for that we need digital skills and digital access. We have heard about the implications for mental health of isolation without the ability to communicate. I want the Minister to think about what that means for the 11% who have no access to the internet.

What I want to see from the Government in the next few days is first, digital skills. There are those who have access to the internet but do not have the real digital skills to use it. They need to be able to take advantage of the many different courses and means of entertainment and so on, which are all fantastically being developed at the moment. They need the digital skills to be able to access that. In that respect, I recommend the work of Sue Black with the #techmums initiative, which is still rolling out during coronavirus, and also the work of many other charities.

Secondly, there is the question of capacity. Here I am really concerned, because all we have had from the internet service providers and network operators is general vague promises that there will be the capacity and it will all be fine and all right. To be frank—I have been known to mention this, but I will say it again—as someone who worked designing telecom networks as an engineer for 20 years, that does not reflect at all my experience. Capacity needs to be dimensioned and built in. There will be capacity now that is dedicated to business networks that may need to be moved over to support home networks with the huge increase we are seeing in working from home.

Moreover, we need to be able to secure capacity for our essential services. I am already hearing that in Newcastle, for example, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust cannot provide the capacity for administrative workers to work from home. If those essential services can be delivered from home, it frees up space and hospitals and car parks and so on.

Just as with personal protective equipment—we had a lot of time to prepare that was perhaps not best used, and there was a lot of talk about everything being okay, which has turned out not to be the case—I fear that over the next few weeks, when we are all confined to our homes with only the internet to serve as a social medium that we can take advantage of, we will find that there is not enough capacity. Networks will fall over. There will be delays and, as always, it will be the most vulnerable and the poorest who will suffer most. I would like to see modelling of the traffic impact on our networks. I would also like to see a commitment to digital access for all, particularly for young people and schoolchildren who will be expected to be learning from home. They need to have free access to the internet to enable them to do that.

Moving on, I want to say a little bit about where we need to go from here. In economics classes, we were taught that the virtue of a capitalist market economy is that it ensures the efficient allocation of capital, as market competition drives inefficiencies out of the system, ensuring the cheapest, most innovative products and services possible. The best the state can do, we were told, is to get out of the way. But the capacity to deal with a major health or economic shock is, by definition, inefficient when that shock is not there, so extra ventilators and stocks of masks or toilet paper are inefficiencies that the free market system drives out. They can only be provided and stocked by the state, and the problem with the lean, mean state machine that the Conservatives advocate and have done their best to create over the 10 years of austerity is that the state is then no longer equipped to provide the resilience, the stock and the inefficiencies that are necessary to support our population in a time of crisis as we have now.

This is a war, and as a war it has real heroes—NHS workers, care workers, teachers, transport workers and cleaners. Not all of them are in the public sector: we have heroes in the private sector too, in supermarkets with our retail workers, and those isolating at home, which is something we have never asked people to do before. As a woman of colour, I know that there is despair at the realisation that natural hair may no longer be a choice, but the only option for us. There are many sacrifices, large and small, which are expected to be made over the next few weeks. Obviously, not everybody faces the particular challenge I just mentioned.

The heroes of this war must be rewarded. After the second world war, we had the national health service, homes fit for heroes and the welfare state. After this battle, we need an economy fit for heroes. We who have the privilege of walking in these corridors of power are insulated from some of the worst impacts—the desperation, the fear and the confusion that I know is going on in homes across Newcastle. I want the Minister’s reassurance that we will build a better and fairer economy out of this desperate crisis in order to be an economy fit for the heroes who are now helping us to drive out coronavirus.

I want to end on a note of hope and optimism, because in Newcastle and across the country we have vibrant, active people who want to do the right thing and want to support and look after others. We have great communities across our country, such as in Newcastle with the Newcastle City Council city lifeline, which allows people to volunteer their time to support community organisations and projects. We have already heard that the national Government scheme for national health service volunteers has been inundated.

Newcastle upon Tyne Central has 11 active community Facebook groups that residents can post their needs and volunteers commit their time to. Slatyford tenants association in my constituency, which offers bingo and tea once a week, has closed down for the duration of the coronavirus crisis, but is looking forward to opening again. Mrs T’s Café in Blakelaw, which supports the local community through excellent nutritious food, is looking forward to getting back.

Of course, we also have our food banks. Newcastle United Supporters Trust is one of the most impressive organisations I have ever seen. As a Newcastle United supporter, one of the most inspiring sights on a Saturday when walking past St James’ Park is the Newcastle United Supporters Trust stall, where those shaking the buckets, as I have done, will find people putting in £1, £5, £10 or £20. We should not need food banks, but when we do, such generosity from Geordies and people across the country is inspiring. Although we cannot have stalls on the streets—we have no more football matches for a while—we still get fantastic support online. Food is being donated by businesses such as Fenwick, TK Maxx and Thorntons. Geordies from Newcastle, but also from Brighton, London and, I understand, the Falkland Islands have donated money online. We also have Newcastle United Foundation, which is delivering hot meals to schoolchildren. They all need our support, as do our theatres, cinemas and charities.

Much of the real world is going online and we need to ensure that we have a real-world community, as well as real employment and a real support and welfare sector for when the crisis is over, when we can build an economy fit for the heroes we will create.

Royal Assent

Contingencies Fund Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Committee stage & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Desperation was the word used a number of times by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and, prior to him, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). It sums up the feeling of many people for many reasons. I think it also underpins what the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) did. I wish he was two metres from the Minister to demonstrate good social distancing in this place. He was right. This debate is about improving the schemes as far as we are able to do so, as part of our contribution to scrutinising the Bill.

My first point, which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), is about construction sites. We have all seen the pictures, and some of us have passed examples today, of construction workers working in big numbers in close proximity. That cannot be right and it is certainly not what was intended by the Prime Minister’s guidance. Perhaps the Minister can take that point on board and consider how that situation might be prevented. It is a very serious matter, not just for those workers but in terms of spreading the virus elsewhere. We must all remember that, even if we are fit and healthy and do not become sick ourselves, it is not about the individual, but who we pass it on to.

On banks and loans, the problem, as has been stated by a number of Members, is that loans mean debt which cannot be repaid without the certainty of an income. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester just made the point about us not knowing the end date. If people do not know the end date, they will not be able to plan to pay the loans back. That is a real problem. If we then add on the uncertainty of having to provide personal guarantees, it becomes extremely problematic for many businesses to take advantage of the loan scheme. The suggestions made by Members for how the loan scheme might operate are really important, and it is really important that the Government go away and look into them.

On the behaviour of banks, in other debates we have heard descriptions of pharmacists and food retailers hiking up prices. The banks are doing exactly the same thing with interest rates. That cannot be allowed to continue. I thought the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) was going to suggest nationalising the banks as a way forward. He was at one stage channelling his inner Marxist for the benefit of some in the Chamber. [Interruption.] There is agreement from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington on the Front Bench. The point is that the taxpayer bailed out the banks. People paid the money back through higher interest rates in the financial crisis. They are now about to repeat that behaviour at a much more dangerous and difficult time in our history. There has to be intervention by the Treasury, in whatever shape or form, to prevent that and to ensure that the banks behave responsibly, provide support and do not put apply onerous terms, whether through personal guarantees or ultra-high extortionate rates of interest.

There is also the trust issue. Businesses do not want to borrow because of their past experiences. During the financial crisis when I was running a business, I had the experience of having my overdraft facility recalled overnight. We were lucky that we were able to cover that out of personal savings, but very many businesses were not able to do so and went to the wall. People suffered grievously—some took their own lives. We have debated that many times in this Chamber, and we do not want a repeat of that over the coming months and years after the immediate crisis has passed. I therefore urge the Government to intervene now to get that right.

As well as taking advantage of the Government’s employee retention scheme, businesses will need to pay additional costs such as rents and insurances. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester made the point that businesses are being told that they do not qualify for business continuity insurance. The same applies to income protection for the self-employed and small business owners, because this disease did not exist when their policies were written. Those issues need attention. The vast sum of money that the Government are making available provides the opportunity to look at some of the other costs for businesses to see whether there can be help beyond that suggested for employees. Grants are certainly a part of that. Given how long this situation might last, the size of the grants will need to be constantly reviewed so that they are sufficient.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about grants. The biggest grant, of course, is the job retention scheme—that is a grant. It is Government funded, and there is no requirement for employers to pay anything towards it unless they want to do so, and they can top it up to that 20%. Therefore, will he concede that the scheme is a very important initiative by the Government and that it will be welcomed by many businesses?

[Bill Esterson]

Absolutely. It is important, and I certainly welcome it. None the less, there are some challenges with it. The fact that it is not available for the March payroll is a big problem for many businesses. We have already seen a significant number of businesses close and many workers laid off who will not now be eligible to be part of that scheme. The Government, totally understandably, have used examples of furlough schemes elsewhere in the world, but it will be difficult for the scheme to deal with the nature and the scale of this crisis.

[John McDonnell]

What we were trying to establish in our discussions with the Government last week was equality of sacrifice. Yes, workers and the Treasury have realised that there will have to be some sacrifice, but we were expecting some contribution from employers themselves. An hour ago, 400 workers at Tristar in my constituency were laid off. Those 400 drivers were told that they will get paid 80% of their wages by the Government and they have been laid off for three months. We expected the employers to contribute to that 20%, but, in this case, that will not be paid. The crisis is falling on the shoulders of workers, rather than on businesses. There is no equality of sacrifice in a number of these companies, some of which are being ruthless.

[Bill Esterson]

My right hon. Friend highlights the fact that some employers do not behave in a way that we should be able to expect them to behave given the nature of the crisis. We have heard other examples of large companies behaving in a way that is irresponsible and, frankly, downright wrong.

In addition to what my right hon. Friend says about employers not paying the 20% element of the wage replacement scheme and taking advantage of it, it is also the case that, for employers who wish staff to go on to short-time or part-time working, or reduced hours of some sort, the scheme does not apply. There is a real challenge for businesses in those categories, too.

That brings me on to the self-employed and this point about desperation. People are desperate now. We have debated that a number of times today and over the past few days as well. I just do not get the sense of urgency in this place. We are in here, and away from the real world. The same applies with Whitehall. I just think that, sometimes, people here do not have a sense of just how desperate things are when two members of the same household are both self-employed and have no money. They cannot put food on the table. When the Chancellor says, as he did this morning, that he is worried about the scheme for self-employed going to wealthy people, I say, as indeed did the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton in his urgent question, let us not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Let us get a scheme in place and let us make it comparable with what the Government have offered to employees.

I want to say just a word or two about food supply and how the fund might apply there. There will be challenges around security of food supply; obviously, given the closing down of international transport links, that will be a challenge. We heard about the pressures on supermarkets. Some of the behaviour in supermarkets has been completely unacceptable, and the same applies to pharmacies. I hope that some of this money will go to ensuring security of deliveries, to protecting retail workers, to making sure that food and medicine get to those who most need it, and to helping pay for deliveries. The same applies to the supply of PPE, which hon. Friends have spoken about.

The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton is right to raise the issue of helicopter money; at some point, that is something that the Treasury should consider. Any scheme, whether on PPE, food or access to funds, is only as good as the information out there, the awareness of the scheme, and the immediacy of access to it. The Government need to do much more to ensure that people know what is available in all those areas. The gov.uk website will carry that information, but lots of people and businesses do not know that it is there.

There is a real imperative on the Government to work much harder on the information that is getting out there, and on access to what is being offered. Television and radio will lose their commercial advertising; there is a great opportunity to replace it. I can give an example of the power of really good advertising: the video put together by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust respiratory department. It was one of the most powerful pieces of advertising about the need for people to stay at home that I have ever seen. The BBC showed it; I think Sky might have, too; and it had viral attention on social media. The Government need to produce advertising of that quality to demonstrate what is available in a range of areas across society. Some of this money can be used to deliver on that agenda. Information and proper access will ensure the most effective use of this enormous necessary injection of funding.

The debate has been an opportunity to bring together the issues. I hope that the Financial Secretary will take them to all his colleagues across Government, as appropriate. It is interesting that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton said that 1919 was the last time there was this sort of scrutiny; that was the year of the Spanish flu pandemic. We will not vote against the measure this time, but let us hope that, this time, it is effective, and that the money gets through as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

That is a different point. My point is that Parliament has plenty of opportunity to scrutinise spending. If it does not do that, that is a choice that it makes.

The right hon. Gentleman’s final point was about whether this Government believe, or any Conservative Government have ever believed, that markets can do it all. Let me assure him that no Conservative Government have ever believed that, and this one certainly do not believe that. At the risk of invoking one of my great heroes, Adam Smith, the position is that commercial society is a dynamic evolution in which forms of property are supported and recognised in law and then used to become the basis of profitable market development. That is how our system has evolved over many decades, and the state is integral to that process for all the reasons the right hon. Gentleman has described, so this is a way of agreeing with him.

May I turn to the comments made by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell)? Again, I thank him for his support for the Bill, and I think that constructive attitude is important. He is right to call this the gravest crisis we have known, certainly for this generation. A strong theme in his speech and those of others was the need for more communications; it was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). Of course, we understand that on the Government Benches. During the debate, the House will be pleased to know, I got a text from gov.uk referring me to the coronavirus website. That is a direct intervention of a kind I am not sure I would approve of outside the context of a national crisis, but one that is very welcome in that context. It shows evidence of and bears testimony to the belief we have in this very important response and in the need for communications.

[Bill Esterson]

I am very grateful to the Financial Secretary for highlighting the issue that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and I raised about communication. The point about the gov.uk website is that not everybody knows about it, and a further point is that not everybody has access to the internet, particularly some of those most at need—older and more disadvantaged people—and that is where some of the other routes for getting information out there are so important.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Member for that point, and he is absolutely right. One role that every Member of this House can have is to spread the word among constituents to make sure that this is widely understood.

The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington talked about the importance of consulting the trade unions. He will know that there have been consultations with Frances O’Grady and other trade union leaders, as well as with the Mayor of London, to try to build public understanding and a shared view of these issues.

A final point I would make about what the right hon. Gentleman described is that we have had statements on the Government’s response, two urgent questions, an Opposition day—we have one tomorrow—and two pieces of legislation in the last two days alone, so there has been every opportunity for parties across the House to question and interrogate us. As colleagues have been kind enough to point out, the Government have been working at tremendous pace, with every hour of the day being exploited for the purposes of trying to get the right outcome, and where we have imperfection, as it were, we will try to make this as good as we can over the next days and weeks.

Let me, if I may, move on to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). He asked what extra the Treasury will be borrowing as a result of this, and the answer is that this is a cash item, as he will recall. The debt management remit will follow, and we will set out the Government’s borrowing plans. He raised an interesting question about whether money spent in response to this crisis could be itemised differently in the national accounts. That is an interesting idea, and I thank him for it. He highlighted the impact of tech start-ups, and he is absolutely right.

I thank the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) for supporting the Bill. I think he is absolutely right to talk about the need for business recovery. We do not share his excitement about a universal basic income, in part because it does not actually hug the need across the population as well as a well-functioning benefit system, and that is what we have tried to do. It is a live argument on both sides. Of course, there are parts of the spectrum, notably those on the state pension, where we have something close to a universal income already in place, although not necessarily at the level that people would have expected.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) persuasively and interestingly illustrated the choices faced by Government and businesses through his own business, and I thank him for that. My understanding of the personal guarantee issue touched on by many is that the circumstances for the business loans are to be agreed between the lender and the individual. There might be some element of personal guarantee, but not as relates to the primary residence. The desire is to build the flexibility and potential availability that comes with that, but without compromising people’s ultimate wellbeing.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for his comments. Through his speech today and in his remarks in Treasury questions, he has registered his intense concern on this issue, and I thank him very much for that.

Let me wind up by saying that this is a proportionate legislative response to the crisis and that it seeks to close an important gap in cash flow in the estimates process. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

Further proceedings on the Bill stood postponed (Order, this day).

Contingencies Fund Bill (Money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Contingencies Fund Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums to be issued out of, or paid into, the Consolidated Fund which is attributable to increasing, in relation to any time before 1 April 2021, the percentage specified in section 1(1) of the Contingencies Fund Act 1974 to a percentage not exceeding 50%.—(Eddie Hughes.)

Question agreed to.

Self-employed Persons: Financial Support

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I refer to the answer I gave a moment ago. We are actively looking at this and we hope to bring forward proposals in the coming days.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The way around the problem that the Minister, and the Chancellor before him, identified of giving money to people who do not need it was given to him by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). The money can be recovered later. Do not let that concern about a handful of people get in the way of putting the scheme in place and deny desperate people, who cannot put food on the table, money they need right now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

If they are on pay-as-you-earn, they are eligible for the job-retention scheme, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about the range of concerns that exist, and we continue to look carefully at what we can do to enhance the measures that have already been announced. He will be aware of the enhancements to the welfare package—my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced that an additional £6.5 billion has been put in so far—and we will continue to look at what more can be done.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I encourage the Minister not to make the perfect the enemy of good in the design of the scheme. Many self-employed workers are worrying about their inability to put food on the table this week. They are finding the universal credit system completely overwhelmed, so I encourage Ministers to announce the scheme and make sure that the cash gets through. It has to be soon; otherwise, people are going to be in real hardship.

[John Glen]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. That issue is why we have tried to move forward on interventions that could be done quickly and have done them as quickly as we can. In respect of universal credit, we have increased the UC standard allowance from £317.82 to £409.89 per month for single claimants. We have increased the local housing allowance, we have relaxed the earnings rules for self-employed UC claimants, and we will continue to look at every measure that we can to make an impact in the lives of those people who are suffering as the hon. Gentleman describes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. It is certainly possible to use those historical returns. They are a year and a half out of date, so they will be necessarily imperfect. They also do not provide an easy way to distinguish between those who are deserving of support and whose incomes are being affected by what is happening, and those who are much wealthier and whose incomes are potentially increasing currently, but they do provide a basis and a universe to look at.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

When I mentioned earlier that the universal credit system was overwhelmed, the Minister may not quite have taken on board the point I was raising. A self-employed worker sent me a screenshot of their attempts to use the system yesterday; 33,383 people were ahead of them in the queue to use the claims section of the website. Unless this is resolved, people who need money right now—limited though that money is under universal credit—simply will not be able to get hold of it through the system.

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the pressure on the Department for Work and Pensions at this time. That is a key reason why the design of the schemes that we have been looking at and that have been put forward by the Chancellor do not add complexity and pressure on the DWP. We have been actively working on identifying where we can free up and reprioritise resource in DWP to assist with this issue. I have been discussing the matter with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and working closely with her on it.

Coronavirus Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is just as important, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Government new clause 16 increases the top threshold for the level of assistance that can be given to industry for the purpose of the economic crisis, and I welcome the proposed change. The Government must do what they can to prevent an economic disaster. However, I would also ask that the Government structure financial assistance to ensure that the Government bail-out supports the workforce, the sustainability of the company and the wider national interest. Perhaps the Minister can confirm, now or subsequently, that the Government will attach restrictions in areas such as staff retention, dividend buy-outs, share buy-backs and executive remuneration for any company receiving financial assistance, and whether the Government will seek equity stakes in those companies that receive significant assistance.

There is also the issue of renters, in respect of which the Government have tabled a new clause, and there is real concern about this. It was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) on Second Reading. There is a concern about the Prime Minister and his promises to the country’s 20 million renters to protect them from evictions, because this does not seem to be an evictions ban, which is what the Opposition have argued for, and we understood was promised by the Prime Minister. The legislation does not seem to stop people losing their home as a result of coronavirus; it would just give them some extra time to pack their bags. In a sense, that makes us wonder why the Government are not willing to make a very simple change. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) wrote to Ministers to give them the legislation that would provide the protections, banning evictions and suspending rental payments beyond the crisis. There is already welcome help for homeowners, and I hope the Government will look again at their promises to renters. We do not need this public health emergency to become a crisis of housing and homelessness as well.

As the Government disturb people’s way of life, they must also sustain everyday existence, and people are anxious about sustaining themselves through this difficult time. There are millions of self-employed people not covered in the way they should be by the measures set out by the Chancellor, as a number of colleagues on both sides of the House have raised.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the challenges faced by the 4.7 million self-employed people, as quoted by the Federation of Small Businesses. I was sent a screenshot of a claim being made by somebody self-employed this afternoon, and it said that there were 33,383 people ahead of them in the queue to use the claim section of the website. I am sure he will agree that that is a very worrying sign of the ability of the system to cope—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman is making a very important point, and every Member of Parliament has received similar emails from their constituents to the one that he has just described. I am very concerned that we have only an hour and a bit to go—[Interruption.] No, I make no criticism of the hon. Gentleman: it is very important in emergency legislation that the official Opposition have a full say in what happens at this point of the Bill, but I implore Members to move a little bit faster. If everybody makes short points, we will get all those points in, which we must do.

Coronavirus: Employment Support

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I thank my hon. Friend for his points; he raises a number of interesting ideas. He is absolutely right about the voluntary sector needing support. As I have indicated, there will be a package coming and different Departments are working together to make this as effective and comprehensive as possible. His constituency has a number of issues regarding the hospitality and leisure sector, and I am very aware of the representations he has been making to Government over the previous few days.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Letting many people get into rent or mortgage arrears or asking businesses to take on debt are not the answers. They are just going to make the crisis worse—[Hon. Members: “And longer.”] Yes, thank you. Every business, every employee, every self-employed person and everybody in the third sector needs to know that their living costs will be covered. The Government need to show the urgency that the Minister talks about and they need to show it today. Will the Chancellor come back today and make a statement on how they will deliver this?

[John Glen]

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right that we need a comprehensive package that deals with businesses, the voluntary sector and individual employees of different categories. We are looking very carefully at the best way to do that, in addition to the significant package of measures we have introduced. I feel his frustration and I will take all these points back and make sure that they are addressed.

Economic Update

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is right that speed is of the essence. The loan programme will be available from early next week. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is doing an excellent job working with the banks to make sure that those applications will be processed at speed, so businesses that need that support will get it quickly.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The amount of money announced for the loan guarantee scheme is a massive sum, but will businesses want to be saddled with debt when they have no income and no means of paying it back? Previous loan schemes were poorly taken up because the banks ignored the guarantee part of the scheme, so how will the Chancellor make sure that the loan guarantee scheme is delivered by the banks at the scale and speed needed?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Member for the thoughtful question. He is right to ask about that particular point. He will be pleased to know that, compared with previous loan guarantee schemes, the generosity of the Government guarantees is significantly increased to provide a strong incentive for the banks to provide that lending. We have spoken to all the banks individually specifically on this measure and have their assurance that they will work at pace to deliver it. As a result of our entreaties, they have also unilaterally unlocked £21 billion of their own extra lending capacity to provide to the sector, so I am confident that they will deliver as required.