Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Jacob Young
I cannot make spending commitments today, but I can say that my hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for his constituents and I am happy to ensure that the relevant Minister is able to meet him to discuss the matter further.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is the deputy chair of the Tata Steel transition board, so if his Department is at all serious about levelling up, will he acknowledge just how devastating Tata Steel’s announcement was for Port Talbot and for families, workers and communities across south Wales? Why will the Minister not work with Business and Trade Ministers to look again with the company at a longer, fairer transition that protects our sovereign steelmaking capabilities and our communities?
Jacob Young
The hon. Lady knows how important steel is to me; my constituency was deeply affected when SSI closed in 2015. We have already provided £100 million of support, but I am happy to ensure that the relevant Minister meets her to discuss how we can provide further support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Michael Gove
We absolutely will consider that. I know there are innovators in my hon. Friend’s constituency who are leading work in that precise area, so I look forward to working with him and those in his constituency to achieve just that goal.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Beauty and Wellbeing Sector Workforce
Jessica Morden Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Well done to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this important debate, and for all her dogged campaigning with my equally hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) on behalf of the beauty sector over a year of enormous challenges.
I put on record my support and admiration for all the hair, beauty and therapeutic businesses in Newport East, which, like many businesses out there, have been hard hit at this extraordinary time and have had to adapt and innovate very creatively in lots of instances in the pandemic. I pay tribute to business owners such as Lynne Palmer of Friends salon in Maindee. She has run her business for decades in the heart of the community—I will come back to that point—and has helped me to understand just how challenging it has been to adapt. She has marvellously adapted to adhere to the rules and to keep giving her customers the wonderful service she provides, but she has also helped me to understand how challenging that has been. I very much agree with the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East about entrepreneurial women in small businesses and about the guts it takes to set up and run a business and employ others.
As has been said, the hair, beauty and products industry is a serious economic powerhouse, contributing more than £30 billion to the economy and employing more than 500,000 people in thousands of salons, nail bars and beauty salons up and down our high streets, forming a real linchpin in local economies. In 2018, the industry generated £7 billion in taxes, and accounted for around 1.3% of GDP. As has been said, the National Hair and Beauty Federation report released last month makes for stark reading on how the industry has suffered through the pandemic. In 2020, salons were shut for 140 days. Turnover fell by 45% compared with 2019, and the average cash loss to a business was £17,000, with those over the VAT threshold taking a bigger hit.
In Wales, there has been welcome help from the Welsh Government, including the freezing of business rates, the small business rate relief package and the £650 million the Welsh Government offered to help businesses with operation costs up to the end of March. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) highlighted at Prime Minister’s questions last week, unlike in England, where business rate relief is being withdrawn at the end of the month, the Welsh Labour Government are extending that rate relief for a year and providing new support for those affected.
Furlough has been welcome, but salons in my constituency and across the UK have called on the Chancellor to take action on the reduced 5% VAT rate to put businesses in the beauty sector on a level playing field with other sectors, such as hospitality. Many businesses in my constituency have signed that petition, and I am interested to hear the Minister’s response. Without comprehensive support, many businesses may close.
National Hair and Beauty Federation research shows that there are more hair and beauty businesses in the less advantaged parts of the UK. Throughout the pandemic, communities in less well-off areas, as well as women and young people, have been disproportionately impacted. That is highlighted in Wales by Chwarae Teg in its report “Covid-19: Women, Work and Wales”, which was published last October. The effect of the sector’s shutdowns, business closures and unemployment is falling disproportionately on women, who are more likely than men to have lost their jobs due to covid-19. There are clearly challenges around female employment.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East said, a recent survey of 5,000 salons found that 62% were not sure if their business would survive beyond the end of the financial year, with 18% sure they would close. Six out of 10 salons started the year with no cash reserves, and many businesses are now described as acutely vulnerable to failure. Those are businesses that generate much for the Treasury. They pay tax and they are vital employers in our community. As my hon. Friend said, it is also important to remember the impact of the cancellation of events, weddings in particular, on the hair and beauty industry.
Finally, the value of the beauty sector cannot be measured in economic terms alone. I hope parliamentary legal counsel, Daniel Greenberg, who is a regular contributor to “Thought for the Day” on Radio 4, will forgive me, but I would like to quote from one of his thoughts last year. He talked about how the restrictions imposed during national lockdowns taught us to distinguish between two types of essential:
“There are things that I need to remain physically healthy: food, medicines and healthcare services. But there are also things that I need to remain mentally healthy, and those go far beyond what might be regarded as the formal mental healthcare sector…Lockdown may have taught us to reclassify as luxuries some things we thought of as essential, but perhaps it has also shown that some things that are luxuries in one sense may be essential to people’s wellbeing…Nail salons and other beauty sector services aim to help people to feel better about themselves, and to make customers generally more cheerful and well-disposed…Perhaps we can see more clearly post-lockdown that these services are in what might be called the frontline of the well-being sector, and that they deserve society’s recognition, gratitude and appreciation.”
I and a great number of my constituents would totally endorse that sentiment. Thanks again to all those beauty and hair businesses in Newport East. On a few occasions over the past year, flippant comments from those on the Government Benches have been unfortunate. The beauty sector needs to be put on a level playing field and supported as a key player in the UK Government’s economic and health-centred recovery from the pandemic. Hon. Friends are here to speak up for the industry, and I hope the debate has underlined the importance of doing so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
The hon. Gentleman knows full well the work that the Government have undertaken to ensure that we address this complicated issue, which involves buildings, building owners, warranty providers, insurers and leaseholders themselves. We have brought forward a very generous set of schemes. More than £5.1 billion of public money has already been allocated to remediate taller high-rise buildings. We have proposed a generous scheme to support people living in leasehold properties between 11 and 18 metres. We will announce further details of that scheme shortly so that the people living in them can have peace of mind that they have a way out too.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)
The UK shared prosperity fund will help to level up and create opportunity across the United Kingdom. The spending review 2020 set out the main strategic elements of the UKSPF in the heads of terms, and we will publish a UK-wide investment framework in 2021 and confirm a multi-year funding profile at the next spending review. We are providing an additional £220 million through the UK community renewal fund to help those areas to prepare for the introduction of the UKSPF.
Jessica Morden [V]
Wales received £375 million a year under the EU structural funds but this Government’s levelling-up fund is giving Wales only £30 million a year, while the community renewal fund’s pilot projects split £220 million across the four nations. Can the Minister see why my constituents are already sceptical that this Government will fulfil their promise that Wales will receive “not a penny less”?
Luke Hall
Levels of investment from EU structural funds will be higher across the United Kingdom in ’21-22 than they were in ’20-21. We are also finding additional UK funding to support our communities to pilot programmes and new approaches. The hon. Lady mentions the levelling-up fund. Her local authority will receive £150,000 capacity funding support with that bidding process. As we set out in the spending review, funding for the UKSPF will ramp up so that total domestic UK-wide funding will at least match EU receipts, reaching £1.5 billion a year. These funds will have a real, lasting impact on communities that will make a significant difference to tackling deprivation and inequality, and binding together our precious United Kingdom.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Robert Jenrick
I am delighted to hear that the hon. Lady is now chairing the APPG. We were pleased to launch the Western Gateway initiative at the end of last year. I think it has huge potential to drive economic growth in that part of the country, to represent the south-west and south Wales on the international stage, and to attract international investment to her constituency and those of her neighbours.