Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I am grateful to everyone who has participated in this debate. There have been a number of fantastic contributions, particularly from Opposition Members. I am sure there would have been many more if we had had time. Running through all the contributions, including those from the Government Benches, are three questions that the Government seem absolutely determined not to answer. I hope they finally will do so in the next 10 minutes.

The first question is about this phantom framework. It is not Halloween yet, but it feels like we are already there with this phantom framework. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary said there was a framework for support for jobs and businesses in tier 3 areas, and he said that the framework offered £20 per head. If that framework is there, why have the Government not published it? Why will they not put it in front of us? Why will they not write it down anywhere so that we can see it? Why will they not let us vote on it? I know the reason why. They will not do that because they know it has not always been used—I will come back to that point later—but also because they know that it is iniquitous. There is no reason why only a per capita formula has been used. For example, we could be looking at the length of time that areas have been under restrictions. We could be looking at the number of businesses impacted, the number of workers impacted, the extent of deprivation or the extent of low pay, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) set out so ably. Why are the Government so secretive about this phantom framework, and why are Conservative Members letting them get away with it?

Leicester, for example, was not covered by that phantom framework. It received less than half the business support that other areas have received. Here is the rub—the rub we all know about, but which Conservative Members do not seem willing to stand up to. If that phantom framework was in place all the time, why on earth have we had the spectacle of these one-sided negotiations? As my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) and for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) have said, the Government are picking regions off one after the other. It has been an iniquitous mess over the last couple of weeks, and it is getting messier day by day. The Chief Secretary said today that Barnett consequentials are going to be used for this phantom formula. Are they? Again, is that written down anywhere? I cannot see it. He made reference to funding announced by the Prime Minister, but we still have no detail on that funding for local government, with no indication of how it will be allocated and no indication of when it will arrive. We still know nothing about what has happened to the £1.3 billion underspend on the business grants programme. That could be used right now to support businesses that are struggling, but the Government are refusing to do so. The first question—and I would be really grateful if the Government finally answered this—is: why will they not be open about the phantom framework, when will they publish it, when will they let us vote on it and when will they stop this absolute chaos?

The second big question is: why will the Government not be open about the job support scheme extension and the fact that, alongside universal credit, it often will not prevent hardship at all? The Mayor of Greater Manchester and other local leaders are absolutely right to highlight this. The Government have been all over the place on this issue. The Prime Minister actually had to correct himself because he got it wrong. Again, the Chief Secretary mentioned some examples today, but I think we all noticed that he left some critical bits out of those examples, did he not? There is the fact that people have to wait for five weeks before they get that support, that they will not get it to the same extent if they have saved above £6,000 or, indeed, that it is dependent on their partner’s circumstances as well. My hon. Friends the Members for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) ably set that out. Those exclusions can be fixed to make a reality of what Government figures have said, rather than just the rhetoric, but the Government are refusing to do this. They could switch the initial grant into a loan in universal credit, they could remove the savings threshold and they could push local housing allowance up to median rents. Why will they not?

The third question that this Government are running away from is: why do they already seem to accept the failure of JSS—not the JSS extension, but JSS—even though it has not even started? I thought it was highly instructive that, when discussion about support for businesses in tier 2 areas came up during this debate, neither the Chief Secretary nor indeed any Conservative Members mentioned the JSS. It seems as though the Government have already factored into their plans the failure of that scheme. My hon. Friends the Members for Halton (Derek Twigg), for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and, indeed, for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) spelled out very clearly the implications of that failure and that of the new version of the self- employment income support scheme for their constituents.

While we have all been sitting in this Chamber, we have received the news that the Chancellor is coming tomorrow—he is coming tomorrow—to make an economic statement. I say to him: seize this chance. He should seize this chance to fix the JSS so that it actually supports jobs rather than doing so little to stem the tide of unemployment, and seize this chance to support workers facing hardship under JSS-plus—the JSS extension. He should also sort out this support for tier 3 areas and end this appalling charade. Finally, in the time I have left let me just say that the last thing the Chancellor needs to do tomorrow is to get with the programme—the programme of what his Prime Minister has said—because the Prime Minister said that he would not rule out a circuit breaker as he knows that the science supports one.

We all know in our heart of hearts, as we have heard time and again from Government Members today, that the system of rolling regional restrictions is hammering our country’s economy but not doing enough to get the virus down. The only alternative is a circuit breaker. Research shows that failing to implement a circuit break to fix test, trace and isolate could cost our economy £110 billion. Tomorrow, the Chancellor must come here and act now to get a grip on this virus and save lives and livelihoods.