Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point. The Government promised local authorities that they would meet their calls to back-fill not just the spending that they have incurred during this period but the income that was lost. What do we have instead? We have a resiling from that promise. That is problematic because of the huge impact it will have on employment in different areas—local authority employment can be a critical part of many economies—but it is also an enormous issue for the economic development in those areas, where ultimately the lack of local leadership will be a huge problem. The Government need to hold to their promise in that regard.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor says that she wants to extend the furlough scheme, but the key question is: how long for? The Chancellor said when he announced it that it would end in October. If it is October, the shadow Chancellor says it should be November; if it is November, then she says December. If she wants a sector-specific scheme, when does it end—at the end of the crisis, as some of her colleagues have said? Is that when the virus is eradicated? What is the solution?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I want to join my colleagues on the Government Benches and, indeed, the Opposition Benches in congratulating the Government on their generous and nimble support for industry in this economic crisis. It has been an extremely difficult time, but it would have been far worse if the Government had not intervened in the way that they have. As the trend is to give figures for our constituencies, I will tell the House that South Cambridgeshire has had 13,600 jobs furloughed—saved—and nearly £90 million in grants and loans to businesses. We also beat Warrington South, with 122,000 meals eaten out and enjoyed by people, including myself. I know from the emails and the talks I have had with businesses and pubs in my constituency that, for many of them, this support made the difference between them failing and thriving. Many of them are now looking forward to the future—we are not out of it yet, but people are a lot more positive.

It is a feature of crises that it is far more difficult politically to get out of them than to get into them, whether the lockdown restrictions or the economic support package. The Labour party has called for continued subsidies, but it will not say when those would end. That means that it is calling for subsidies without end, which means borrowing without end. I do not believe in borrowing without end, because we have to pay off the debt at some point, whether it is us, our children or our grandchildren.

[Miriam Cates]

None of us wants to see mass unemployment at the end of furlough scheme, but given that none of us knows how long this crisis and the restrictions will last, is it not better to shift our support from helping those who may otherwise lose their jobs to creating new jobs, taking advantage of the opportunities in our economy right now?

[Anthony Browne]

I absolutely agree—my hon. Friend has taken the words right out of my mouth. I believe, and the Conservative party believes, in sustainable national finances. Do the Opposition parties believe in that? If they do, they have to explain how they want to get there.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Anthony Browne]

I will carry on.

We are at a time when we must look to the future, not try to preserve the past. The great Andrew Bailey, the new Governor of the Bank of England, said recently in an interview that the Chancellor is

“right to say we have to look forward now. I don’t think we should be locking the economy down in a state that it pre-existed in.”

The shape of the economy will change, as we have heard today. It will not be in the same shape in a few years as it is now. The companies and people working in the aviation sector face a very difficult time over the next few years. E-commerce, on the other hand, is thriving. We have seen airlines cutting jobs, but we have seen Amazon recruiting. Inner-city sandwich shops have been hit really hard and will be for some time as people carry on working from home. Supermarkets are thriving. Pret a Manger has cut 1,600 jobs, but Tesco has just announced that it is recruiting for 14,000 jobs.

The focus of Government should not be on “prolonging the inevitable”, as the chief economist of the Bank of England said. The focus of Government should be on helping with the transition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) said, by helping the people who are losing their jobs into the new jobs that are being created. We must ensure that short-term unemployment does not move into long-term unemployment and that when people come out of work, they have relevant skills, motivation and contacts in industry. As soon as people become long-term unemployed—after six months or one year—they lose motivation and contacts, and the likelihood that their unemployment will carry on for much longer increases. That is why the Government are right to focus on their plan for jobs, through measures such as the kick- start scheme, support for apprenticeships, increased training and advice from Jobcentre Plus. That is the right approach.

Finally, many Members have been praising the international comparisons. We heard earlier the list of countries that have already announced the ending of their furlough schemes. I like statistics, and I have been looking at the Eurostat website, which is very good but could be a bit more user-friendly. The UK’s employment figures from Q2 to Q1—the key employment figures—dropped by 0.7%. That is after a very long period, and every job lost is bad news. However, Germany’s employment figures in Q2 to Q1 this year dropped by 1.4%, twice as much as the UK. In Ireland, the employment rate dropped by 6.1%, nine times faster than in the UK. In France—there seems to be a liking for France on the Labour Benches—there was a 2.6% drop in employment from Q2 to Q1, four times the rate here. We do not have that much to learn from the French employment market ,and I really do not think we should start doing so now.

Finally—[Interruption]—I want to say that Treasury Ministers have made the right decisions at the right time and I am confident they will in the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. There is no “finally”. “Finally” has to come before the end of three minutes—I am sorry.