Economy Update

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend asks an excellent question. In the short term, we are paying for this through extensive borrowing. He will see that this year our debt-to-GDP will rise to roughly 100%. We are also carrying a significant ongoing borrowing requirement, as is evident in the forecasts that have been seen. That is not a sustainable situation, so as we continue to recover and grow, we will have to make sure that we reduce our structural deficit over time, in line with the recommendations from the IMF, to stabilise it. In the first instance, that will come through growth, but we also need to make sure that our public finances are balanced appropriately so that we can pass a strong economy on to the next generation.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

In reply to a question I asked the Chancellor back in September, he said that those excluded from the self-employed scheme earned more than £50,000 and were in the top 5% of all earners. I would like him to admit today that that is not a fair picture of those who have been left out. Millions have been excluded who are not and never have been in the top 5% of all earners. Will he explain why he has deliberately left out so many people again when announcing this latest version of the self-employed scheme, and will he today finally commit to delivering justice for the self-employed?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Lady talks about justice. We have spent over £14 billion to protect and support the self-employed, over 3 million of whom have been eligible for support. That is more substantial, comprehensive and generous than essentially any other country anywhere in the world. Today we have announced that that support is being increased in generosity and lasting longer, with an additional £7 billion, potentially, being paid out in December. I stand by what I said. One of the criteria for qualifying for the self-employment grant was that earnings were less than £50,000. Because we have less information about the self-employed, it was right to target that support at those who need it most. Of all the people who are majority self-employed, 95% earn under £50,000, and the average income of those over the £50,000 limit is about £200,000. I think that is a reasonable and fair way to make sure that we help the most needy in our society.

Lockdown: Economic Support

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend makes a hugely important point. It is not just the number of jobs that are lost, but the duration of time that people are out of those jobs that is critical in mitigating the economic scarring that results from this pandemic. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out in his winter plan the plan for jobs, which included £2 billion of funding for the kickstart scheme. I was speaking to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions this morning and I was very pleased to hear about the progress that has already been made on the kickstart scheme, which is up and running and providing support to 16 to 24-year-olds across our constituencies. It is part of the wider package of support on training—the tripling of traineeships, the £2,000 for apprenticeships, the £2 billion on kickstart—and as we accelerate our infrastructure and bring back the green jobs, such as through the decarbonisation of public buildings, that will also offer new opportunities for training as we deliver that record infrastructure investment.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

The new grant scheme for businesses in the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sector is welcome, but those in my Brighton constituency need to know that all small and medium-sized enterprises in that sector will benefit. In particular, will the Minister scrap the business rates link and the rateable value cap from previous schemes, which caused such hardship? They meant, for example, that business tenants in shared buildings got nothing or that a pub owner in Brighton lost out because rateable values here are higher than in a place such as Bolton. Will he reassure them that they will not lose out again?

[Steve Barclay]

First, it is perfectly fair and reasonable to target a level of support shaped by the rateable value of the property, which is what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has done. The hon. Lady is right to point to the fact that within different local authorities there are different pressures, which is why in the £1.1 billion that has been allocated, we have given discretion to local authorities in their ability to then target support to businesses in the way that best meets local needs.

Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for the self-employed and freelance workers during the covid-19 outbreak.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this important debate, which affects so many of our constituents. The job retention and self-employment income support schemes have provided a lifeline for many, and they have undoubtedly provided a degree of security for those who were eligible. But there’s the rub: far too many people have been ruled ineligible.

Today’s debate takes place just as the six-month period that the self-employment scheme was intended to cover draws to a close. I intend to make the case that the scheme should be continued where it is needed and, crucially, that it should be extended and backdated for all those people who have been unfairly left without support over the last six months through absolutely no fault of their own, and who have endured intense hardship as a result.

Many cannot pay their bills. They are losing their homes, they are drowning in debt and they need our support. Today’s debate is a sorely needed opportunity to set out how the self-employment scheme has fallen short. It has fallen short by failing to recognise the reality of what self-employment looks like in Britain today—by failing to understand that self-employment is significant across the breadth and depth of our economy. The self-employed are beauticians and barristers; charity and construction workers; dentists and decorators; many in marketing, events, arts and hospitality, and many more. This is a chance for us to explain loudly and clearly why self-employed people need justice and why they need support as we go forward.

As it stands, as I am sure all hon. Members know—although, frankly, I am less sure that Treasury Ministers know—the Government scheme penalises a wide range of people. They include those who combine self-employment with pay-as-you-earn work, or PAYE freelancers. They include new start-ups and the recently self-employed. They include women who have taken time out for maternity leave and childcare. They include anyone earning over £50,000. They include those earning less than 50% of their income from self-employment. They include limited company directors who take their income in the form of dividends.

There have been endless requests for the Treasury to meet MPs and those affected by the scheme’s failings to discuss those gaps. Frankly, the exchange between the Chancellor and the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) during Treasury oral questions earlier this week underscored how urgently such a meeting is needed. I am not sure whether the Chancellor just does not understand his own scheme or whether he was deliberately being economical with the truth, but when he asserted that the only group of people excluded from the self-employment scheme is those earning more than £50,000, and that their average median salary is apparently £200,000, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. He is completely and utterly wrong. He does not understand his own policy, and we urge him again to meet us so that we can set out the problem.

At this point, I would like to pay tribute to the brilliant campaigns, including ExcludedUK, ForgottenPAYE, ForgottenLtd and many others, and individuals such as Amanda Evans and Ellie Phillips who have helped the self-employed find such a powerful and united voice. I also thank the various hon. Members from right across the House who joined me, campaigners and the money saving expert Martin Lewis at the end of July to symbolically deliver petitions to the Treasury. They were signed by more than 348,000 people and demanded that the gaps in the scheme be urgently closed.

Those campaigns and many individuals have sent copious correspondence to the Chancellor, detailing the various groups of people who are not eligible for income support. His refusal to honestly engage with those suffering as a result of his policies is frankly shameful. The Treasury has met all requests for dialogue with either deafening silence or meaningless stock responses. I am sorry, but that is not good enough.

It is not good enough for my Brighton constituent who was working full time with the BBC as a PAYE freelancer, so he is ineligible for either furlough or self-employment support and, having come relatively recently from Ireland especially to take on the role at the BBC, he is not eligible for universal credit either. He says that how he has been treated during this crisis has financially ruined him. It is not good enough for Deniz Turan, a sole trader who has gone, in her own words, from being a successful businesswoman to being homeless and feeling suicidal every day in the blink of an eye, simply because she was a start-up who took her income in dividend payments. And it is not good enough for Mark, another small limited company director, who says that the strain of getting no income support on his marriage, his household, his mental health, his physical health and his finances is literally unbearable.

The self-employed have been failed by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, and it is not just me making that argument. As hon. Members will know, an all-party parliamentary group has recently been formed. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for setting up the APPG, which represents those who have not been protected by the various Government packages. It is I think one of the fastest growing APPGs in parliamentary history. It currently has around 260 MPs from all sides of the House, including 79 from the Government Benches, while 15 Conservative MPs added their names to the application for this debate to take place.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

One of the forgotten sectors is music teachers who teach our young people. Many of them—including some in my constituency, as well as throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—do not have any income whatever. They are one of the forgotten groups as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I absolutely agree. The people we are talking about are in every sector of our economy and our society, and they are hurting.

Back in June, the Treasury Committee published a unanimous report called “Gaps in support” as part of the inquiry into the economic impact of coronavirus. It found that hundreds of thousands of self-employed people are suffering hardship because of features like the disqualification of anyone who started a business in the last year. The Select Committee made some clear practical recommendations for change. I agree with the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), that urgently enacting those recommendations and helping those who have fallen through the gaps is the only way for the Government to, as he puts it, fairly and

“completely fulfil its promise to do whatever it takes”.

Sadly, the Government’s response to the “Gaps in support” report was predictable: they made excuses and cited obstacles, when what we need is action. So let me say just a little more about some of those who are falling through the gaps. I mentioned small limited companies whose directors take all or part of their income in dividends. I want to stress that that is common practice; there is nothing suspicious about doing that—it is what people do when they are starting up small businesses, and they plough that money back into those businesses in the early days.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

How is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs meant to know where the dividend income comes from, because when people fill in their tax return, they do not have to say the source of it? It could be dividend income from massive stock market investments, and why should they get subsidised for that?

[Caroline Lucas]

A whole range of practical proposals has been set out by the Treasury Committee, ExcludedUK and many others documenting the other paperwork that could be presented, including records from tax returns and so forth, that can make sure that this scheme is not open to fraud. If the political will is there, a way can be found using a range of different documentation to demonstrate that the money that people are applying for is absolutely legitimate. We can look at bank statements, for instance. It is not beyond the wit of people to make sure that people in our constituencies are not literally having to go to food banks, as an hon. Member mentioned the other day, in order to be able to put food on the table.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I raised this very issue with the Treasury Minister, I highlighted the fact that the records are held in Companies House and all HMRC has to do is marry up the records. The reason he gave was that they did not have enough staff at HMRC. Is that not just a complete disgrace?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. She is of course absolutely right, and it would be a simple measure to do this if the political will were there.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Would these things not be able to be thrashed out one to one in the meeting that still has not taken place that the hon. Lady mentioned?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. Just a first step will be for the Government to acknowledge that there is a problem. Instead of sticking their fingers in their ears and going, “La, la, la”, they need to accept there is a problem here, and I am sure if we all got around the table we could find a way through this.

The vast majority of those small limited companies do not have commercial premises either, so they do not qualify for business grants. Nor do they see taking on large debts in such an uncertain business landscape as a realistic option. Furlough has been a Catch-22 for company directors: unpredictable cash flow means their salaries are low, so the scheme does not cover living expenses, yet if they furlough they are not allowed to work on saving the businesses that are in question.

The scheme has also routinely excluded carers and parent. As part of its inquiry into the impact of covid-19 on maternity and parental leave, the Petitions Committee heard evidence from the brilliant campaigning group, Pregnant Then Screwed. It was told that, because the self-employed scheme fails to properly accommodate women who incur a loss of earnings when taking time off for maternity leave, the gender pay gap among the self-employed, which is already at 43%, will increase, as will the likelihood of women’s businesses failing due to a lack of financial support.

[Anthony Browne]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that people furloughed generally are not allowed to work. But there is an exemption that the Government brought in for company directors who are furloughed—they are allowed to carry on with their company director duties, including saving their business.

[Caroline Lucas]

If they do not have any money, they cannot save their business, can they? That seems an odd intervention to make.

The Petitions Committee urged the Government to amend the scheme to take into account periods of maternity and paternal leave to ensure fairness and equality, yet, once again, Ministers have deliberately looked the other way. That phrase “whatever it takes” apparently does not stretch to ending discrimination against self-employed women. Nor do they care very much about freelancers, especially those on short-term PAYE contracts, as is now common practice because of HMRC requirements. They are caught between a rock and a hard place: denied access to the job retention scheme and the chance to be furloughed, yet often not earning enough from self-employment to qualify for the self-employed scheme.

In some sectors of our economy, freelance working is especially common. In my own Brighton constituency, for example, a number of people work in the arts. Three in four jobs in the arts across the country are freelance. They are the people who make the plays, the musicals and live experiences that are a part of the fabric of British life. We do not always see what they do, but they are invaluable, yet one in three of the skills base in theatre, for example, have missed out on any Government support since March, with disabled people, people of colour and early career workers disproportionately affected. Young people are also over-represented compared with other sectors of the economy. Therefore, rather than recovery, we see a sector that is facing total collapse.

Failure adequately to support the cultural, creative and events industries has put at risk 16,000 jobs across Brighton and Hove and £1.5 billion in turnover. My inbox, like, I am sure, the inboxes of many other hon. Members, is full of emails from constituents forced to abandon long-standing careers in the arts because there is no income support for them as freelancers.

Many working in media and journalism are similarly struggling, as the National Union of Journalists has evidenced, with its members routinely treated as employees for tax purposes, yet not eligible for furlough and not afforded the same protections and rights as staff when it comes to employment law.

Another group of people hard hit is those who choose to combine self-employment with PAYE income. I have a number of constituents in that situation, often as a result of being midway through making the transition to running their own company and being wholly self-employed.

None of this is inevitable. All of it is the result of a conscious choice by the Government to abandon anywhere between 3 million and 6 million self-employed people and freelancers. As the current self-employed scheme winds down, now is the time to change tack and do the right thing by these people. The details of a more inclusive scheme have been set out by the campaign groups and by the Treasury Committee. The ForgottenLtd group published a rescue package. Backed by the Federation of Small Businesses and other business groups, it sent it to the Treasury over a month ago, and it is still waiting for a response.

I appreciate how much other people need and want to speak, so let me quickly, in my last few minutes, outline three things that can be done. First, we can retrospectively expand the self-employed scheme. Bring those people who have been excluded from it into its ambit and make it fair by retrospectively starting it from 1 March to give it parity with the furlough scheme.

Secondly, as well as looking back, we need to look forward, so the Government should immediately extend the duration to the many sectors where the self-employed are a significant part of the workforce and which will not be back to anything like normal for some time to come. Thirdly, the Government should be looking at ways of keeping pace with the changing shape of the economy, balancing public health and economic priorities with the likelihood of more local lockdowns, for example. Part of the answer to that is a basic income scheme. The self-employed and job retention schemes do not work in tandem with the welfare system and therefore do not approach anything like a proper safety net. Many people have not been able to claim universal credit. Some have received no support whatever and the consequences are devastating, so much so that ExcludedUK has been working with the Samaritans on creating a dedicated helpline called Mind the Gap for those experiencing mental health problems. There is a simple and effective way to start to put things right and a universal basic income delivered via a welfare system that lifts everybody up would be a key cornerstone of that.



In conclusion, on Tuesday the Chancellor said he had

“not hesitated to act in creative and effective ways to support jobs and employment,”—[Official Report, 15 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 160]—

and promised he would continue to do so. The self-employed and freelancers rightly want that creativity to apply to them as well. The Treasury has demonstrated time and again that it does not understand self-employment, so at the very least those of us standing up for the excluded are asking this again today: please will the Minister go back to the Treasury team and ask them to meet us so that at the very least they can understand what is at stake here? The stakes could not be higher: people’s businesses are being destroyed and their lives are being destroyed. That is not right and that is why so many Members want to speak in this debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There is a four-minute limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank all Members who have contributed to this debate and many others who I know wanted to do so, but could not because there was not time. All of us—even the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne)—want to see some changes to the scheme. There is no shame in saying that errors have been made and in trying to rectify them. That is all we are asking the Minister to do, yet I notice that she is still refusing to meet us. That is simply not acceptable.

The Minister says that the Government understand the crucial role that the self-employed play in our economy. No, they do not, otherwise she would not be suggesting that the self-employed just take more loans or they just have universal credit. She said that the Government have not forgotten them. The impression that has been left with people all around the country is that the Government have forgotten them. She says that the Government have not helped them as they would have liked. The Government have not helped this particular group of people at all.

I beg the Minister again. It is not enough to say that she will get a response—a much-delayed response—in writing to these excluded groups. They want a meeting. Why is that so much to ask? What happened to all the rhetoric about levelling up and the warm words about the Government putting their arms around everybody? Why are these people being excluded? Why are our innovators, our entrepreneurs and our risk takers being punished? This is not a party political issue. I am happy to commend the Government for the support they have put in place for the people who have been able to access it, but I want the Minister to acknowledge that some people have not been able to access it and to act now. I ask her again to meet with us.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered support for the self-employed and freelance workers during the covid-19 outbreak.

Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls for the Government to abandon its one-size-fits-all withdrawal of the Coronavirus Job Retention and Self-Employment Income Support Schemes, and instead offer targeted income support to businesses and self-employed people in those sectors of the economy that have been hardest hit by the virus and are most in need of continuing assistance, and in those areas of the country which have been placed under local restrictions due to rising rates of infection.

Our country is in the grip of a jobs crisis—a crisis that will intensify if the Conservative Government do not change course. Between April and June this year, the number of people in work fell by the largest amount in over a decade. By July, there were nearly three quarters of a million fewer employees on the payroll than there were just four months earlier. We know that these are extraordinary times. That is why Labour has acted as a constructive Opposition, working with the Government, businesses and trade unions to do all we can to save lives and livelihoods. But it is not enough for the Government now to say simply that this is an unprecedented crisis and that only so much can be done to mitigate the damage. In their amendment to this Opposition day motion, the Conservatives maintain that

“any deviation”—

I repeat, any—

“from this Government’s proposed plan will cause damage to the United Kingdom economy.”

Some humility, willingness to listen and flexibility is desperately required here.

Under this Government, the UK has suffered the highest number of excess deaths in Europe. It has experienced both the worst quarterly fall in GDP in Europe and the worst quarterly fall among all G7 nations. The evidence suggests that the number of job vacancies in the UK has fallen further than in any comparable economy and that it will take us many months to get back to pre-crisis levels.

Our people have suffered a double whammy: a health crisis coupled with a jobs crisis, both made worse, I regret to say, by the Government’s unwillingness to listen, learn and accept that they do not always know best. But there is still time to change course. Around 4 million people are still furloughed under the Government’s coronavirus job retention scheme. Another 2.7 million people have so far made claims under the self-employment income support scheme, the second and final phase of which has just opened. Many more people have not yet had any support from this Government at all and have fallen through the gaps between the various schemes.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Member is making a really powerful point. Does she agree that a huge injustice is being done to the self-employed, many of whom have gone for six months without any support whatsoever? These are our small business owners who take some of their salary and dividends for perfectly good reason. Does she agree that the Government should take their fingers out of their ears and start listening to the self-employed?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention. I agree with her. We have repeatedly raised that issue with the Government. Repeatedly we have been told that the computer says no—that no response is possible. That does not appear to be the case given the evidence. There would be means to assess people’s previous income. If there is a concern around fraud, ultimately additional deterrents can be added to the system to prevent any such fraud.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

I absolutely share the concern set out by the right hon. Lady. From conversations that we have had in previous roles, I know how much she advocates for her constituency, and I support that business engaging with her, the council, trade unions and others. I will come on to a number of measures that the Government have taken, and some further measures that we will take, regarding our wider support package to the business community.

This should be set in the context of the three-phase approach. In the first phase of this crisis, the Government introduced measures to halt the spread of the disease. That included protecting our public services with more than £49 billion of funding for the NHS, schools, local authorities and other front-line services. The Chancellor said that he would do whatever is needed to support our NHS, and that is what he delivered. Our plan supported people, with the furlough scheme supporting nearly 10 million jobs—jobs that might otherwise have been lost.

The self-employed scheme provided 2.6 million people with £7.6 billion of support, and mortgage and credit payment holidays helped 1.9 million people to manage their finances—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred to that earlier. For those who are out of work, we made welfare support more supportive and easier to access, and we introduced a hardship fund to help up to 3 million of the most vulnerable people. Of course our plan backed business, because we know that only by supporting businesses can we create sustainable jobs.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Steve Barclay]

Sustainability is an issue dear to the priorities of the hon. Lady, so of course I will give way.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I pay credit to the Government because they have supported a number of different groups very well. There is, however, one group who they have not supported: the self-employed, who are falling between the gaps. He will have heard about the very real hardship that they are facing right now. They, and the Excluded UK all-party group, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), have been asking for a meeting with the Treasury team, but they have not heard back. Will the right hon. Gentleman agree to meet them and hear directly about the scale of the difficulties they are facing?

[Steve Barclay]

I am very familiar with this issue. We covered it in my appearance before the Treasury Committee some months ago, and the Chancellor has repeatedly addressed it. As the hon. Lady will know, the shadow Chancellor referred to part of those concerns, and just yesterday there was discussion in the media about concerns regarding fraud in other Government schemes. Part of the challenge and the constraints on this issue is concern about the level of fraud. We have already set out the Government’s position on the issue. I do not think there is further to add in that respect, because those concerns have been well articulated.

The Economy

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

It is to address that exact reason that the Chancellor did not simply announce a VAT cut to help that sector. It is also why the eat out to help out programme is particularly targeted. Demand is key to those businesses being able to restart and take back people who are furloughed. It is predominantly and disproportionately the young who are most affected within that sector, and that is why the measures are targeted to help those who would have been most scarred economically if they lost their jobs at the start of their career.

The commitment to levelling up across the regions, including in Cumbria—in a way I am sure the hon. Gentleman, who is a proponent of localism, would support—is not just about the big-ticket projects such as High Speed 2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, important though those are. It is every bit as much about numerous smaller-scale projects: the trunk roads, the local bus services, the flood defences—projects that rarely make national headlines but are every bit as transformative at a local level. That is why the Government have announced more than £100 million for local road upgrades. It means that we can proceed with much-needed bridge repairs in Sandwell, we can set about upgrading the A15 in the Humber region, and we can provide £10 million to support tackling bottlenecks in the Manchester rail network to bring about a faster, more reliable journey for thousands of passengers.

Our commitment to levelling up is directly linked to another of the Government’s totemic ambitions—that of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Barclay]

I can anticipate the intervention and I will make a little progress first. Over the past 30 years, the United Kingdom has reduced its carbon emissions by more than 40%, but now the time has come to accelerate our efforts—and I am sure the hon. Lady agrees at least on that point.

[Caroline Lucas]

Yes, I would love him to accelerate his efforts, but the truth is that the £3 billion earmarked for green recovery is dwarfed by ongoing Government funding for fossil fuels, whether it is the £27 billion road-building scheme or blank cheque bail-outs for aviation, so does he agree that we should have not one penny more spent on propping up the fossil fuel economy, not just for climate reasons, but because investment in the green economy has a much higher return on investment and is much more labour-intensive?

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

I know you are watching the clock, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the good thing about that intervention is that I no longer have to repeat those points in my speech. I agree entirely.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Wes Streeting]

I am afraid I must begin to draw to a conclusion. I remember Madam Deputy Speaker as a Chief Whip and she is not afraid to crack it.

The Chancellor has taken measures that most people would have thought unthinkable from a Conservative Chancellor. In his statement this afternoon, he said his response to this crisis would be unencumbered by dogma. We welcome that approach and we hope that others in his party were listening. In recent weeks and months, we have seen the penny drop for the champions of small state, free market, low tax economics about the limitations of their blinkered ideological dogma. As they look to the future, perhaps they might reflect on their past failures, because if we are to build a better country in the aftermath of the crisis, we have to be honest about the state of the country as we entered it.

The ideological dogma that underpinned the last decade of Conservative economic policies has made this a lost decade—a decade of low productivity, stagnant wages, rising poverty and mounting debt, the slowest growth since the war and, perhaps the most damning indictment of all, child poverty rising on their watch. More children in this country are living in poverty—and not by accident or because of factors beyond the Government’s control but because, as the Chair of the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission said,

“welfare changes over the past ten years have put many more children into poverty.”

People may not talk of their own life experiences in terms of a failed economic model or a broken social contract, but they experience it when their bills rise faster than their wages, when their public services are not as good as they were, or when they hit glass ceilings because of their class, gender, race, religion or disability. Those people who have stared into the grim reality of Britain’s social insecurity system—many for the first time in their family’s living memory—and have contemplated what life would be like on universal credit can see that broken system, too. Those living outside London and the south-east can see it, and clearly resent the concentration of so much power, wealth and opportunity in one corner of our country. Even within our capital city, between the glittering lights of the City of London and Canary Wharf, those families crammed into temporary bed-and-breakfast accommodation can see the injustice under their noses. People may not always talk in terms of paradigm shifts, but they know that after this crisis, we simply cannot return to business as usual.

The Chancellor said he wants to

“heal the wounds exposed through this crisis”,

but the wounds were already there for anyone who wanted to see them. This has got to be a turning point for our country—one that tackles injustice and gives everyone a stake in success; that fixes our broken social care system, so that never again are older and disabled people left as dangerously exposed as they have been during this crisis; one that addresses the social insecurity experienced by people in precarious work and builds resilience for the challenges ahead posed by technological revolution; one where we seize the opportunity to make the recovery a green recovery with the green new deal that our country needs; and where we argue with renewed vigour and conviction that global problems require global solutions, and where we play our part in rebuilding the institutions needed to provide safety and security in a dangerous world.

For the sake of our country, I hope the Government rise to the challenge, because ours is a great country, full of promise and opportunity, one of the richest countries in the world, with world-class universities, entrepreneurialism and successful business, groundbreaking science and technology, world-renowned arts and culture and a vibrant civil society, and that is what we are fighting to save. But this is also a country of staggering inequality, intolerable poverty and wasted potential, and that is what we are determined to change. As history has shown us, when the country provides the call for change, it is in a Labour Government that they find the solutions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I give almost two cheers for the short-term measures announced today, but less than one for the medium and long-term measures. The Chancellor will have to produce a much more coherent economic strategy if we are to deal with unemployment in the medium term and with inequality and climate change, which are still massive challenges for our country.

In the short term, the job retention bonus looks good, particularly on the back of the furlough scheme. The VAT cut for the hospitality and leisure sector is also good, but there was nothing for the self-employed; they have been left behind—they have been excluded—and that is just not good enough. The kick-start programme for young people looks good, but why only six months of training? If we are really going to help young people come back and retrain, we have to give them far more than that. And I do not think that the stamp duty measure is going to be a huge boost to people. For a start, the housing market is already picking up now that people are able to buy again, as demand was already there. Secondly, this tax cut will get capitalised in the price; house prices will just go up, not serving anyone, and that will mainly go to the better-off. I would rather have seen help for renters, help for homeless people, and building homes—that is the way to tackle the housing problem in our country.

When it comes to the medium-term, this package is just not up to the moment. We have a serious economic crisis, the like we have never seen, and it comes on the back of the threats that will be posed to parts of our economy from Brexit. We also have the climate change challenge and the global issues caused by the tensions in trade between China and the US. All these things will dampen the global economy and our economy, and I just do not think that the package we have heard today really amounts to anywhere near enough if we are serious about protecting jobs and getting that green transition.

It is difficult to look at the figures and do a proper analysis, given that there is so little data in this plan for jobs, but it looks like this may be the smallest fiscal stimulus in the whole of the G7. So to put this into context, this is not the massive boost that people are saying.

If we really want a fiscal stimulus, we should be talking about the longer term and about the new industries. I was very proud when I was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change that we really boosted renewables. We nearly quadrupled renewable power. We became the world leader in offshore wind. We saw jobs created in declining economies such as those in Hull, Grimsby and Lowestoft, thanks to the policies we put in place on the basis of green jobs. Where is that ambition here? I do not see it. There is nothing on hydrogen, as has been said, and no real push for renewables, no real push to make sure that we bring in investment in nature and environmental improvements as part of the climate change challenge, and very little more on green transport.

I say to the Ministers on the Treasury Bench that what we wanted above all, for short-term jobs and long-term benefits for the climate and the economy, was a home insulation package that was much bolder. There is a former Prime Minister who used to say, “Education, education, education,” and I say, “Insulation, insulation, insulation.” I want jobs in every village, town and city across our country. That will be the way to really make sure we do not have a blight on our economy and a blight on young people, and really get a grip.

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. As well as insulation, does he agree that we need to make sure we have zero-carbon homes going forward? Some 2 million homes have been built since the Climate Change Act 2008 came into being that now need to be retrofitted. Does he agree that the Government must bring forward the future homes standard, and that they were wrong to scrap the zero-carbon homes standard?

[Sir Edward Davey]

The hon. Lady, whom I call my hon. Friend, is absolutely right. I was part of the team that brought in the zero-carbon homes regulation, and two months after we left office the Conservative party got rid of it. It was an outrageous act of climate change vandalism, and nothing has happened on that, so the hon. Lady is absolutely right.

The idea that the Conservatives have a good record on climate change is for the birds. All the advantages actually came from things that the Labour Government did before 2010 and things that the Liberal Democrats did when we were in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and they tried to undo almost everything when they had the chance. I saw them trying to undo all the great things—not just zero-carbon homes, but they cancelled the carbon capture and storage plans, which they are now trying to put back with the timidity of a mouse. They do not understand how big the challenge is. This is an historic challenge; we have to move our economy from a fossil-fuel based economy to a net zero carbon economy, and we cannot wait for 2050. We now have an opportunity to retrain our young people, and our whole workforce, so that we can deliver this, creating a green industrial base and a regional strategy that brings everybody up. However, I fear that this Prime Minister, this Chancellor and this Government are just not up to the job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Three minutes: so just three short points.

First, I want to add my voice to all those urging the Government to plug the gaps in the self-employed support scheme. In Brighton this is a massive issue, particularly in the creative and arts sector. Of course we welcome the funding package that was announced earlier in the week, but we need to fund the people who work in that sector, not just the bricks and mortar and the infrastructure, so I ask the Government: please listen to all those people on both sides of the House who want to see those gaps plugged and also please take a sectoral approach to the furlough scheme so that it can be maintained in those sectors that cannot yet safely open.

Secondly, the statement as a whole was, sadly, far too much about propping up the housing market, ignoring renters and creating low-paid jobs. It is about consumption at any cost and it is doing far too little on climate and nature.

Thirdly, the so-called green recovery is a drop in the ocean of what is needed. Yesterday, the New Economics Foundation released a new report that showed that by investing £8.6 billion a year in whole-house retrofit, we could create more than half a million jobs, reduce household emissions by more than 20% and cut affected household bills by £418, all within the remainder of this Parliament. That is what an energy efficiency programme worthy of the moment would look like.

It is a similar story for nature. There is some recognition of the challenge, but a complete failure to grasp the scale required. The £40 million for nature-restoration jobs might sound good, but let us compare it with the last 10 years of cuts to our nature agencies. It is a sticking plaster that will not arrest the decline of our natural world. In 2009, the core funding grant to Natural England was £212 million; 10 years later, it was just £60 million. That is £150 million less for nature protection each and every year, which is more than three times the total allocated to the green jobs challenge fund today. The sums announced are so out of step with the challenges we face that some are even questioning their lawfulness. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will no doubt have received Plan B’s letter before action.

Any progress is still dwarfed by public money for fossil fuels. We cannot put out a fire with one hand while still pouring petrol on it with the other, yet that is what the Government are doing, through the £27 billion road building schemes, the blank cheque bail-outs to airlines and the public money funnelled into fossil fuel projects overseas. It is time for a line in the sand. The Government should commit that not one penny more of public money will be spent on propping up the fossil fuel economy and fuelling the climate emergency.

Yesterday I presented the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill. It was put together by the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and myself, and it is the first ever attempt in the UK to legislate for a green new deal. If the Government are struggling to grasp what a commensurate response to our challenges looks like, I invite them to take a look at the work that has already been done. It is, some might say, oven ready.

Economic Update

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend is right about the difficulties facing the aviation and aerospace industries, and of course I will keep them very much uppermost in my mind as we go through the next few months. More generally, I pay tribute to the work that he did when he had those briefs. He knows at first hand what it takes to get unemployment down, get people into work and give them hope and opportunity. I hope that we can build on the success that he had, because we will absolutely need to deliver for our young people in the coming months.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Chancellor says he is proud of the Government’s green record, yet the green measures announced today will cut just 0.14% of UK emissions—not only that, but this is a Government who are still committed to spending £27 billion on new roads. If he wants to have a green record that he can genuinely be proud of, will he start by cancelling the roads scheme, put the money into public transport and broadband, and introduce a new rule for the UK economy to ensure that all spending and taxation is in line with the Paris agreement and restoring our natural world?

[Rishi Sunak]

It is a record to be proud of. We have cut carbon emissions by 40% in the last few years. We are now a world leader in offshore wind and, for the first time ever last year, we generated the majority of our energy from zero carbon sources. We are building on our progress. That has happened under a Conservative Government, and whether it is through our nature for climate fund, our measures to tackle air quality, or new technologies such as direct air capture or carbon capture and storage, this Government will ensure that we meet our net zero obligations and do so in a way that creates jobs in every part of our United Kingdom.

Finance Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. We will not have to wait for the Minister to respond to hear the Government’s case, because I can tell the House what he is likely to say. He will tell us that tackling climate change is a top priority for the Government, and that this is demonstrated by the UK becoming the first major economy to pass legislation committing us to reach net zero emissions by 2050. He will tell us that the UK reduced its greenhouse gas emissions faster than any other G20 nation between 2008 and 2018. He will cite measures taken in this Bill as further evidence of the Government’s commitment, including tax support for zero-emissions vehicles; reforms to vehicle excise duty and company car tax; preparations for the introduction of the plastic packaging tax; and the establishment of a UK emissions trading system outside of the European Union. I suspect he will also point to previous announcements made by the Government, such as the £800 million fund for carbon capture and storage.

Taken individually, these steps are welcome, but collectively they do not provide the momentum we need to accelerate progress towards net zero. The Opposition do not believe that the 2050 target is ambitious enough, and neither does the science, so it is all the more worrying that, on current projections, we will not even achieve that deadline.

In its 2020 report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change underlines the charge that I am laying at the door of the Government this afternoon. It acknowledges, as do we, that in the time that has passed since the UK legislated for net zero by 2050, initial steps towards a net zero policy package have been taken. However, as the Committee says,

“this was not the year of policy progress that the Committee called for in 2019.”

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a really strong case. Does he agree that the problem with the Government’s actions to date is not just what they have not done but what they are promising to do, including a £27 billion road-building scheme and boasting of 4,000 miles of new strategic roads in Britain? That would be an absolute disaster as far as the climate is concerned.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the parliamentary leader of the Green party for that intervention. There is a really important issue here around infrastructure. Our current infrastructure contributes enormously to the carbon output of our country. If we make the right infrastructure decisions now and get our priorities right, which is the point the hon. Lady is making, the Government can accelerate our progress towards net zero.

The Committee on Climate Change recognises the policies announced by the Government on transport, buildings, industry, energy supply, agriculture and land use. However, taking all of that into account, the Committee states that

“these steps do not yet measure up to meet the size of the Net Zero challenge and we are not making adequate progress in preparing for climate change.”

The charge sheet is serious. The Committee tells us:

“Announcements for manufacturing and other industry have been piecemeal and slow…There is still no strategic approach to drive change at the required scale and pace.”

It also says:

“Buildings and heating policy continues to lag behind what is needed”,

and that nearly 2 million homes built since the Climate Change Act 2008 was passed

“are likely to require expensive zero-carbon retrofits and have missed out on lower energy bills.”

At the general election, the Conservative party promised in its manifesto to invest £9 billion in energy efficiency over the next decade. The Committee says that that

“is welcome but not enough to match the size of the challenge and has been delayed while awaiting the National Infrastructure Strategy.”

The Committee also welcomed plans for reform of the renewable heat incentive and plans to introduce a green gas levy, but warned that

“the current plans are far too limited to drive the transformation required to decarbonise the UK’s existing buildings”.

On agriculture and land use, land-use change and forestry, it noted that

“the current voluntary approach has failed to cut agricultural emissions, there has been no coherent policy to improve the resilience of the agriculture sector, and tree planting policy has failed outside of Scotland.”

There is no room for complacency, which brings me to new clause 28. It asks the Chancellor to

“conduct an assessment of the impact of this Act on the environment…within six months of Royal Assent”,

including the impact on

“the United Kingdom’s ability to achieve the 2050 target for net zero carbon emissions…the United Kingdom’s ability to comply with its third, fourth and fifth carbon budgets…air quality standards, and…biodiversity.”

At present, the UK is set to miss its legally binding fourth and fifth carbon budgets, having only achieved its second carbon budget thanks to accounting revisions to the UK’s share of the EU emissions trading scheme and the impact of the global financial crisis. I am sure many Members of the House will agree that we should not rely on fiddling the figures or economic crisis to help us to achieve our carbon budgets, though I have to say, looking at the current state of the aviation industry and the Government’s unwillingness to act to save jobs, perhaps it is their intention simply to allow jobs to go and businesses to pull out or even go bust, rather than take the action needed to ensure a just transition.

Too many of our citizens are breathing in toxic air, with the serious health consequences that follow. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted developed countries in the world. Despite our being a signatory to the convention on biological diversity, 41% of species in the UK have decreased in abundance over the past 50 years, and 15% of species are threatened with extinction. As Sir Robert Watson wrote in relation to climate change and biodiversity loss,

“We either solve both or we solve neither.”

The risk is that as it stands we are going to solve neither.

We had hoped that the Prime Minister’s speech this week would provide more than warm words to tackle global warming. It had been billed as a new deal in the spirit of President Roosevelt’s response to the great depression, but moving some infrastructure spending forward is not a new deal and planting a few new trees certainly is not the green new deal our country needs. State action alone will be insufficient to meet the challenge, but national and international leadership from the Government is essential if we are to succeed. The public recognise that. They are looking to the Government to provide that leadership, but according to a YouGov poll published by the Institution of Civil Engineers today, less than a third of the public thought the Government had a plan to achieve net zero. They are not wrong, and there is no shortage of ideas available to the Government.

The Committee on Climate Change has provided a series of recommendations for every Government Department, including Her Majesty’s Treasury. Today, the Institution of Civil Engineers has dedicated its annual “State of the Nation” report to infrastructure and net zero, with a range of practical proposals that I hope Ministers will look seriously at adopting. This week, the Climate Coalition organised a fantastic lobby of Parliament around its green recovery plan, with citizens from all over the country Zooming in to meet their MPs virtually and underline the importance they attach to getting it right.

In the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic and the economic crisis it has brought about, there can be no return to business as usual. Climate justice and social justice go hand in hand. If we take the right decisions now on industrial strategy, infrastructure, housing, energy, transport, agriculture, research and development and our natural environment, we will not only accelerate progress towards net zero, but will create new jobs—good jobs—new industry and better opportunities in communities blighted by deindustrialisation. In doing so, we will build a better, fairer Britain. We will improve the nation’s health and happiness, and we will safeguard our natural environment and our planet for future generations.

That is why we ask the Chancellor to come before the House next week not just with an economic update, but with a back-to-work Budget that has a laser-like focus on protecting people’s jobs and livelihoods and safeguarding their lives through the pandemic. Our approach, our ambition and our determination to achieve net zero should absolutely be at the heart of that Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We have just under 30 minutes before I want to bring in the Minister and we have four more speakers. I do not want to set a time limit, but it would be helpful if speeches did not go over, for example, eight minutes.

[Caroline Lucas]

This debate could not be more important. The Arctic is on fire; 2020 is on course to be the hottest year on record; and 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have been since 2000. There is such a thing as being too late. This is a pivotal moment, because the actions that we take over the next few weeks and months will either lock us into high-carbon dependency for decades to come, in which case we can say goodbye to any chance of avoiding the worst of climate catastrophe, or they will start to lay the foundations for a greener, safer, fairer future as we emerge from the peak of this pandemic. These decisions could not be more consequential and nor could the issue be more urgent.

New clause 34 would require the Chancellor to review the impact of the Bill on human and ecological wellbeing, including the wellbeing of future generations. I am grateful to colleagues for their support. Ministers might like to note that the Scottish and Welsh Governments are already members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership, a global collaboration of nations and regions whose leaders and Finance Ministers recognise that economic progress in the 21st century means delivering human and ecological wellbeing as the overriding priority.

If we are going to build back better, we need to put improving the health and wellbeing of people and nature first when it comes to economic policy making. That should be the primary objective of every Budget, every Finance Bill and every short-term measure that the Chancellor announces next week as part of his plans for economic recovery. I hope that today we can take a small step in that direction by requiring that the Bill be assessed against its impacts on human wellbeing and the health of our natural life-support systems.

My new clause is also a step towards putting the provisions of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill into action. That is the subject of Lord Bird’s Today for Tomorrow campaign, which is supported by dozens of colleagues across both Houses. I am pleased to have introduced a private Member’s Bill in this House to match Lord Bird’s in the other place. That would bring about a future generations Act. I pay tribute to Jane Davidson for all her work in the Welsh Assembly on that issue.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister talked of addressing inter-generational injustice, yet so far the Government’s economic response to covid has doubled down on business as usual. Young people are at the forefront of the campaigns for a transformative green new deal, yet all they are being offered is a bargain-basement imitation, with none of the necessary boldness, vision or resource.

My new clause 34 also considers the interim report of the Treasury’s own Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity. It recognises, as Professor Dasgupta has written, that economies

“are embedded within—not external to—Nature.”

So we urgently need a new economic rulebook. As Dasgupta explains:

“Unlike standard models of economic growth and development, placing ourselves and our economies within nature helps us to accept that our prosperity is ultimately bounded by that of our planet. This new grammar is needed everywhere, from classrooms to boardrooms, from parish councils to government departments.”

I would argue that it is needed in this Bill as well. The good news is that just 6% of the public want to return to the pre-pandemic economy. Many of them know that GDP is a poor measure of the things that really matter and that we should not let policy be guided by it. The Government must change course and put public health above private wealth.

As for what an assessment of human and ecological wellbeing would look like, the Treasury could do worse than start with the seven wellbeing goals in the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015: prosperity; resilience; health; equality; cohesive communities; vibrant culture; and global responsibility. All this comes with a “sustainable development principle” to guide delivery. Even the inventor of GDP was adamant that it should not be used as a measure of wellbeing, because GDP goes up when things that are detrimental to human wellbeing go up. For example, a motorway pile-up is a nightmare for everyone involved, but a boon for GDP, as new vehicles are bought and possessions are replaced. It is little wonder that the majority of people want the UK Government to pursue health and wellbeing ahead of economic growth.

[Anna McMorrin]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech about the wellbeing of future generations and the Act that I am proud to have drafted and written in the Welsh Government, along with Jane Davidson, when I was a special adviser. Does the hon. Lady agree that that Act helps pave the way for what we hope will be something across the UK, including in England? Does she also agree that it demonstrates working together across all the Departments and all the different forms of government, and how we must have sustainability at the heart of things?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, not least because it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to her work in drafting that Bill. I was not quite clear about the role she had played in drafting it. I have worked closely with Jane Davidson on the private Member’s Bill, as has Lord Bird. I am delighted to pay tribute to the work of the hon. Lady and to agree with the substantive point she makes, which is that that kind of Bill is a way of mainstreaming sustainability across every Department and every nation of the UK.

If we were to ask the millions of households in the UK suffering from hunger, food insecurity or fuel poverty whether our current growth-based economic model has delivered them prosperity, we would find that they would say that it has not. It has delivered rising inequality, insecurity, and environmental breakdown. What would change if we made the wellbeing of people and nature our primary economic goal? Some examples are obvious. Of course, we would have investment in things such as energy efficiency and retrofit, creating thousands of good jobs in every constituency, ending fuel poverty and getting emissions down—a real win, win, win. Despite Dominic Cummings apparently thinking this is all a bit boring, it is fundamental to that win-win of combining social and environmental justice. It would also mean more jobs in care, and the Women’s Budget Group shows how sensible that would be. Investing in care creates seven times as many jobs as the same investment in construction, for example, with 50% more recouped by the Treasury in tax revenues. Investment in care is also greener, producing 30% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than construction. A care-led recovery is also a green-led recovery. That just one example of what new clause 34 is all about, and I hope the Government will agree and look upon it favourably.

I wish to finish by saying a few words about the level of climate ambition. I am delighted to hear everybody, right across this House, talking about the importance of the climate crisis, but unless we get the ambition right, fine words will not get us where we need to be. As for where we need to be, organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Christian Aid, ActionAid and others have worked what our fair share of a climate reduction ought to be. If we look at how that compares with the Government’s 2050 net zero target, we will see a massive gulf. Those organisations have worked out that, based on our relative wealth and historical emissions, we should be getting to net zero by 2030—a full two decades earlier than the current target—and that we should be creating the equivalent of another 100% reduction of UK emissions overseas through climate finance to the global south. That is what we need to be aiming for.

Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

That may well be true, but I would highlight and remind my hon. Friend that one scheme, the bounce back loan scheme, is specifically targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises, and indeed micro-enterprises. Those loans are on very concessionary terms and do not require personal guarantees up to a threshold, so the organisations that my hon. Friend mentions should be able to benefit.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

May I add my voice to many others in paying tribute to our much-missed colleague, Jo Cox?

The pandemic has further highlighted the deep connection between human health and thriving ecosystems, with the destruction of nature both increasing pandemic risk and driving climate change. With the news of record job losses, will the Minister prioritise the job creation potential of nature restoration at a national level and agree that not one single shovel-ready project will end up indiscriminately destroying nature? Secondly, will his Department establish a new taskforce on jobs for nature, to maximise the number of people employed in protecting the natural world, rather than destroying it? He says the Treasury will recalibrate whether there is more to be done on the green economy; I assure him that there is, and he just needs to get on and do it.

[Jesse Norman]

Having been an energy Minister, I am extremely aware of the many good things that we have done and continue to do, but I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution.

Covid-19: Economic Package

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that. He is indeed right. I was pleased to see polling that showed that people in this country felt that businesses were well supported, as compared with almost any other developed country. Indeed, the full scale of the economic intervention that we have put in place as a percentage of GDP stands as one of the most comprehensive anywhere in the world. I am very happy to continue listening to my hon. Friend to see what more we should be doing to support his businesses in Milton Keynes as they look forward to a future where they can start to reopen, start to get their employees back to work and start to rebuild our economy as we emerge from this crisis.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

I welcome the continuation of the furlough scheme and its new flexibility to allow part-time work. That is vital for businesses in Brighton, particularly those in tourism and hospitality. Will the Chancellor consider further support to that sector by a reduction in VAT on tourism? It is a policy that many of his Government MPs support. Will he consider revising the self-employed scheme by including small business owners who take their income in dividends, as well as those who combine PAYE with freelance work?

[Rishi Sunak]

Those who work for their own companies can indeed avail themselves of the coronavirus job retention scheme for the PAYE part of their income already. With regard to support for the hospitality and leisure sector, I agree that it is the sector that has been most impacted by what we are all going through, which is why it is the sector that has received the most support, with cash grants of up to £25,000 for those businesses—almost a million are eligible—and an entire business rates holiday worth almost £12 billion for the entire 12 months of this financial year. I believe that to be considerable support, but, of course, as we emerge from this crisis I keep all economic measures under review.

Covid-19

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

At times of crisis, the Opposition should be constructive, but we must also tell the truth. The truth is that the Government’s handling of the crisis has been a disaster. The public inquiry that will inevitably happen will have no shortage of material to consider: how 10 years of austerity left the NHS struggling to meet normal levels of demand, let alone cope with a pandemic; how chronic fragmentation under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has in essence contributed to dangerous delays and disorganisation; how learnings from Exercise Cygnus were covered up and—worse—ignored.

Of course, no Government facing challenges of this magnitude will ever get every decision right, but we have to understand how, at every point in this unfolding crisis, this Government have made the wrong judgment calls, and their unforced errors have cost lives. This is not about having the benefit of hindsight; it is about wilfully choosing to ignore the evidence in front of us, and about British exceptionalism leading Ministers to believe that their way is always best. We should not wait for an inquiry after the event to learn lessons from such a disastrous approach, because getting answers now can help to save lives today.

In particular, the new track-and-trace operation must learn from the weakness of current top-down, centralised control. It must be driven at local level, not contracted out to remote private sector companies, with directors of public health and environmental health officers leading the delivery of a decentralised, community-based operation.

Too many of the Chancellor’s economic support schemes are failing businesses, and in my Brighton constituency they are desperate. For example, the self-employed scheme should include small business owners who take their incomes in dividends; allow flexibility for those who combine pay-as-you-earn with freelance work; and stop discriminating against new start-ups and women who have taken time out in the past three years for maternity leave and childcare.

Businesses need reassurance that the job retention scheme will continue for as long as needed and that the 80% furlough rate will not be reduced any time soon. As talk starts about opening up the economy again, it is even more vital that furloughing be made more flexible by allowing short-hours working so that businesses can prepare and by tapering its withdrawal to avoid cliff edges. That is critical for sectors such as tourism and hospitality, which are a key part of my Brighton constituency.

The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world upside down, exposing major weaknesses in our economy and deep-seated inequalities in society, with the most vulnerable hit the hardest. But what we do next could change everything. As the world recovers, we have a chance to reset the clock and build back better than before. If we do not, we risk leaping out of the covid frying pan into the climate change fire. There should be no going back to normal, because normal was intolerable for far too many people, as well as trashing the environment and nature.

It is vital that the recovery plan decarbonises the economy in a way that also tackles grotesque levels of inequality. A transformative green new deal could create hundreds of thousands of new, decent jobs. Let us harness people’s growing recognition of the importance of clean air and green spaces and combine it with a new realisation that when the Government choose to, they can spend at speed and scale. We should look at evidence that green recovery packages deliver far higher returns than conventional stimulus spending. Programmes such as mass home insulation, thereby reducing emissions and fuel bills, would create jobs throughout the country.

Let us resolve that there should be no unconditional handouts of public money to prop up carbon-intensive industries; instead, funds should be used to support workers and restructure industries to bring them into line with the Paris climate commitments. Finally, we need to listen to the scientists who warned for years that deforestation and the exploitation of wild species have created a perfect storm for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people and, having listened, we must act.