Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

We have heard today from my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and from Members up and down the country about the very real difficulties that so many businesses are facing, the despair felt by so many of our constituents at the prospect of their job disappearing or their businesses failing, and the desperate need for the Government not to wait another few days, but to set out clearly now the package of support they have in mind for businesses and families in the months ahead.

I begin by thanking Members for speaking very passionately in this debate. Many shared heartfelt stories about the issues facing businesses and individuals during the covid pandemic. I am afraid I cannot mention by name all the Members who have participated in this debate, but it is very clear that many constituents have been excluded.

We heard from my neighbour, the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett), about Pete Marshall the publican, who said that the Government must do more to prevent our treasured pubs from going under. That point was echoed eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). We heard the sobering contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), who relayed that ExcludedUK has reported 13 suicides during this crisis. I am sure I speak for all Members when I send our sincerest thoughts and prayers to all those families who have been impacted by such a tragic and life-changing loss.

We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), who powerfully advocated for the health and beauty industry, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who celebrated local artisan producers, acknowledging that they would drive the economic recovery. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) talked about how his survey of local businesses showed that lockdown measures failed to take account of their impact on small businesses.

What all these interventions have in common is the need for the Government to ensure what we on this side of the House have called for time and time again—for economic support to go hand-in-hand with the restrictions in place on public health grounds. We called for that as the pandemic began. We called for that month in, month out last year, and we call for it now, as we have a clear hope and expectation that the restrictions will soon be over.

The roll-out of the vaccine is good news for our country and good news for our economy. For much of the past 11 months, good news has been too elusive, and there now seems to be a way out and a way forward. For people in insecure jobs or whose employment has been severely affected by the pandemic or by the restrictions brought in to control it, the optimism brought by the vaccine is sadly tempered with concerns.

We have heard so many moving stories today about the concerns that firms have, that unions have and that families and individuals in every part of our country have. Those are concerns that my own constituents share, including Phoenix Tours, a family-run coach company that is concerned about paying its mounting rent arrears, business rates, wages, finance and insurance. Those concerns are shared by my constituent Anneke Scott, a world-renowned classical musician, whose self-employed musician colleagues trained tirelessly for years to master their trade and are now facing debt and depression.

This country is concerned about the debts that companies and individuals have built up and about paying them off over a sensible timeframe. They are concerned about meeting the full costs of business rates before turnover and profits are back to what they were before, and they are concerned about the level of trade they can expect if they have to hike up prices again before demand picks up. Individuals are concerned that their employer will not be able to keep them on without a furlough scheme that tides them through, even though the businesses will soon be running again. The self-employed are concerned that they still have not heard from the Government about the fourth self-employment income support scheme grant. People are concerned that those who work hard, play by the rules and have submitted a 2019-20 tax return still do not know whether that will make them eligible for support. There are concerns about the millions of excluded who fall through the gaps in the Government’s support schemes—they are still forgotten, still not supported and still excluded.

Today we ask the Government to act responsibly and take the right decisions that will secure our economy and rebuild our future. Our country has seen the worst excess death rate and the worst economic crisis of any major economy. That was not inevitable; nor is it inevitable that people should be worried about their jobs, their livelihoods and their futures. This Government should be taking decisions now with a relentless focus on jobs and growth, not putting them off for another week or longer. These are decisions that the Chancellor should have taken, should be taking and should be prepared to go on taking, and the failure to take them is itself a decision that the Chancellor should be here defending today. It is a pleasure to see the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) in his place today, but this crisis was made not on Victoria Street but on Great George Street, and it is extraordinary that the Chancellor is not here today.

In closing, I ask the Government again to remember that not every individual has savings, not every business has reserves and not every family has more than one earner. Not everyone can wait for the Chancellor to come to Parliament. It is past time for him and the Treasury to rise to this challenge and to set out a clear package of economic support for businesses and families, driven, as the Prime Minister might say, by data not dates, and to recognise that every day of delay causes more unaffordable hardship for people in all our constituencies. The Chancellor must do the right thing and act now.