Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

Laura Trott Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson]

I will make some progress.

Many businesses are awaiting further lockdown easing before some or all of their staff return to pre-covid working hours. Numerous other viable businesses are simply not in a position to keep staff in their jobs without this crucial support. Indeed, in our own island communities, such as the Isle of Arran in my constituency and the Isle of Cumbrae, there has been even greater disruption with the necessity of capacity restrictions on ferries. With the main tourism season drawing to a close, further support for viable jobs is essential.

Government Members continue to throw their hands in the air and ask, “For how long should support continue?”, to which we on the SNP Benches reply, “For as long as necessary to save tens of thousands of viable jobs, perhaps millions in the longer term.” We say: we want the Chancellor to keep his word when he said he would do “whatever it takes” to save jobs. Let us put to bed this economic illiteracy about what that would cost. The direct cost to the Government of extending furlough would be offset by income tax and national insurance contributions paid on the wages of those remaining on furlough and by savings on unemployment benefits that would not need to be paid. The net cost of extending the furlough scheme across the UK would be around £10 billion, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. We also need to factor in how that would help economic growth and leave public debt slightly lower as a share of GDP than if the scheme were closed down next month, and that is before we factor in the likely significant social cost of not extending the scheme. Without an extension, unemployment is likely to be as high as 10%.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I accept many of the points that the hon. Lady is making, but does she also accept that some of the jobs she is talking about will not be viable when the furlough scheme ends and that extending it would delay the opportunities to retrain or accept jobs in other sectors?

[Patricia Gibson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point, but again we hear the argument that, because some of these jobs cannot be saved, no jobs should be saved. We say: let us invest in our people and assess the economic damage afterwards. At the moment, when the picture is not clear and the facts are still emerging, and when the extent of the damage is still unknown and the economy is still in a critical condition, we cannot afford to wind the scheme down in October.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on securing the debate. I am glad that the motion welcomes the job retention scheme. It is clear from the contributions we have heard so far, from across the House, that the scheme has been an absolute lifeline for people’s jobs. It has certainly been a lifeline in Sevenoaks, where it has saved 12,000 jobs and been vital for so many institutions, from the brilliant Stag theatre to the equally brilliant Bricklayers Arms in Chipstead. But the question now is what we do next.

I will focus my remarks on women and women’s jobs, which have been disproportionately affected by the crisis. I will argue that we do that by encouraging opportunities for women to be economically active where possible, rather than not. It is worth dwelling at the outset on the impact of coronavirus on women. Before the crisis, we had a record 75% participation rate, but the pandemic has hit women’s jobs hard. Women are more likely to work in sectors that have been completely shut down, such as hospitality. The virus has increased the burden of unpaid care, disproportionately affecting women, according to McKinsey and other studies. Mothers have reduced their paid working hours as a result, and by more than fathers. Overall, women’s jobs are almost twice as likely to be vulnerable than men’s jobs, and there is a fear that the gender wage gap will rise because women’s jobs are more likely to be interrupted in the workplace than men’s jobs.

It is in that context that the furlough scheme has been absolutely crucial. Women are 14% more likely to be furloughed, and from July they have been able to come back flexibly, which is crucial. The flexibility shown by employers in relation to home working has also helped many. How do we make sure that women can continue at that high participation rate? How do we ensure that the impact they felt over the crisis does not continue to high rates of unemployment?

To continue furlough indefinitely would, in my view, risk rising female unemployment. It would keep women in jobs that simply, and very sadly, just do not exist. I argue that we should instead focus on encouraging employers to rehire; creating new jobs; supporting childcare and making sure that schools stay open; and encouraging employers to continue being flexible, and indeed to increase flexibility.

On rehiring, I disagree with the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). I think that the job retention bonus scheme will be crucial to allowing women to get back into work. As I have said, women are more likely to be furloughed, so the scheme is more likely to benefit them. It is something I welcome and encourage.

With regard to creating new jobs, Andy Haldane—I am sure that he will be quoted at length today—has said clearly that

“keeping… jobs on life support is in some ways prolonging the inevitable in a way that probably doesn’t help either the individual”.

I agree. What we need are new, flexible opportunities in the workplace, such as the green jobs encouraged by the green homes grant, and we should offer retraining opportunities. I hope that we will see that in the upcoming Budget, because that would really make a difference for women, enabling them to move into new jobs in the new workplace that we are inevitably coming into.

We also need to support childcare and keep schools open. It is critical that nurseries, childminders and schools stay open. Whatever happens over the next few months, it is absolutely essential that we make sure we do not see a drop-off in female employment rates, particularly as we see the end of furlough. I would also like to see continuing flexibility. The pandemic has caused a shift in working that has been fought for for years. It helps working parents. We should encourage it and see it continue.

To conclude, I welcome furlough, but continuing it for too long would risk women’s jobs in the long term. We need to focus on getting women economically active, back in work and supported by childcare.

Economic Update

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support. Perhaps alongside the “eat out to help out” scheme, we can make progress on reopening our gyms, to deal with that side of the equation at the same time. He is absolutely right to suggest that airlines and aviation are experiencing a difficult period. I remain in close contact with the industry and with individual companies to understand what is happening, and if there are things that we can and should do, of course we will.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

Many Opposition Members would have us extend the furlough scheme indefinitely, but that would simply extend false hope. Does my right hon. Friend agree that bold demand-side measures, such as “eat out to help out” and the VAT cut, are much better ways to protect jobs and our much-loved businesses?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the OECD agrees with her. We should not be peddling false hope to people. We should be providing a better future for them, and that is what our interventions today will do.

The Economy

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens).

There is much to discuss about the resilience of the economy, the demand-led recovery and the need for consumption. However, today, I will focus my remarks on women and what else we need to do to safeguard their jobs during this period.

There is no doubt that Government intervention has saved women’s jobs during this crisis. We know that women are disproportionately likely to work in the hospitality sector. We know that parents have been more likely to be furloughed and mothers more likely than fathers. So it is Government action in this area that has really helped women safeguard their jobs and what we saw this morning was that that help will continue.

The jobs retention bonus scheme will be incredibly important to make sure that women’s jobs continue in the aftermath of this crisis. The VAT cap for the tourism and hospitality sector as well as the eat out to help out scheme will disproportionately help women. That is very important and has been overlooked in the narrative we have had to date. So this support will be very important.

What else do we need to do to make sure that women come out of this crisis in a strong position? First, we need schools to go back in September. That is very important, and I am so pleased that the Government have pledged that that must be the case. It must, however, be full-time; we must make sure that all children are going back five days a week, to ensure that mothers and fathers can responsibly go back to work with a commitment that they know cannot be reneged on.

We must also look at whether, in future local lockdowns, we do actually close schools. The evidence is that children are less likely to get the disease and less likely to spread it, so there is a question in my mind, because of the economic recovery, as to whether we need to close schools when we do the local lockdown.

The other point I briefly want to make is about flexibility. The flexibility we have shown during this period has been a lifeline for women and women’s jobs, and I know that many want to see that continue. The model of local hubs, which would enable people to go in and out in a more flexible manner—and which I hope we can pilot in Sevenoaks—will be very important and will help to remodel our economy for the long term.

So I welcome what was announced this morning. It will be hugely beneficial for women in the workforce, and I think we need to ensure that we get schools back and a more flexible economy going forward.

Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Laura Trott Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

Of course we want to ensure that there is a phased return to normality. That is what the delay and the extension of the two schemes is designed to do, so we do recognise that concern. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the OECD has predicted the strongest bounce back for this country. That may well be because of our extremely flexible labour markets, from which I hope we continue to benefit as we come out of this dreadful situation.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I am sure that the whole House will welcome the remarkably stable unemployment figures this morning, which are testament to the huge amount of support that the Treasury has put into retaining employment. May I urge my right hon. Friend to put the same amount of effort into creating jobs during the recovery, including encouraging inward investment and tech hubs—including some in Sevenoaks?

[Jesse Norman]

Tech hubs in Sevenoaks are my regular reflection; I thank my hon. Friend very much for her question. Of course, she is absolutely right. As we think about a more sustainable, greener and more productive economy, we need to be thinking about how our whole industrial strategy and posture will change, and I have no doubt that it will involve continued investment and support for technology in all its manifestations across the UK.

Public Sector Exit Payments (Limitation) Bill

Laura Trott Excerpts

Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am not sure that my hon. Friend would have put it quite that way. The House needs to have a mood of intolerance of serial incompetence, if not a conspiracy of silence and inaction among people in the civil service.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

No. I am going to bring my remarks to a close in the hope that we will be able to hear something from my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury before we reach 2.30 pm.

Social Mobility

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock); I particularly agreed with her remarks about university and encouraging participation. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) for allowing us to debate this today.

Given the time, I will talk about one specific thing: the importance of going to a good university in driving social mobility, and what more we can do to encourage that. I should declare an interest at the outset; I am a Sutton Trust girl and am now an ambassador for the trust. It has been mentioned a number of times, which has been a pleasure to hear.

We know that university places correlate with success; that has been shown again and again, in study after study. The Browne review showed that people are more likely to be employed, with higher wages and greater job satisfaction, if they go to university, but it is the top universities that confer particular benefit. We know that many of our top employers only recruit from a certain select number of universities. On average, they target the top 19 of our 115 universities, so it is not only university attendance that we need to focus on, but which universities our deprived kids are going to.

That has been slightly overlooked in the debate we have been having over time about university attendance, which has been more about the quantity of people going through university, rather than the quality of the education that they get and what impact that has on their educational outcomes. We have found that not enough children from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to those good universities. There have been huge upticks in the numbers over time, which is of course to be welcomed; the Government have done a huge amount to encourage that, and the Office for Students now has a plan in place for each university to encourage it further. However, the most advantaged 20% are still seven times more likely to attend the most selective universities than the most disadvantaged 40%—a statistic that we urgently need to address.

Over time, we have put a lot of emphasis on universities. That is obviously right, and there is a place for that, but, as someone who came from a comprehensive school and was lucky enough to get into Oxford with the help of the Sutton Trust, I know how difficult it is to make that transition from a comprehensive education that was good, but not amazing, to university, and the extra help that was needed once I got there. We can do more at school level to help with that transition and to raise aspiration for our kids as they are going through school.

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of raising aspiration, but it is not just about raising aspiration a year or 18 months before the transition to university. It is about raising aspiration towards the end of primary school and at the very beginning of secondary school. There is good evidence that if that takes place, and is done effectively, we hugely increase social mobility and the aspiration of young people and their ability to attend good universities.

[Laura Trott]

My hon. Friend is right. We cannot just do this at sixth form: we need to focus on it throughout a child’s school career.

Successive Governments have tried to fix careers advice, and none has been effective in doing so. Careers advice varies hugely throughout the country and, despite the best efforts of successive Governments, evidence shows that it is not really getting much better. In our levelling-up agenda as a Government, we really need to focus specifically on that.

We also need to look at subject choice. The subject choices that children from more deprived backgrounds make tend to be less academic and I do not think they always realise how much that will drive future choices. There were people at my school who did A-levels, but did not study all the sciences, and then realised that that restricted their ability to study medicine at university. They did not know that beforehand. It is crucial that we look at how schools guide subject choices and consider what different career paths require at an earlier stage.

We come to the fundamental question of the quality of education. The education reforms that the coalition put through and that have been pushed by this Government have been critical in driving up standards in schools. We need to focus on the fact that children need to be able to read and write when they leave school; everything else that we talk about—music education, for example—is all well and good, but we must have those fundamental basics. The reforms that have been made to GCSEs and A-levels are critical and I believe will, over time, make a difference in social mobility terms.

We cannot lose sight of that. We cannot allow our Ofsted regulators to inspect everything under the sun, rather than examine quality of education. It has become a Christmas tree over time, which has diluted the focus on the quality of education in schools. We cannot allow that to happen. If we are to really succeed in changing social mobility, we need laser-like focus on quality in schools, which I know we will have. The increased funding will help with that.

In summary, we must get more disadvantaged kids into good universities. We need to highlight opportunities and instil aspiration in them throughout their time in schools.