Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, taking those two questions in turn, I have to disagree with the noble Lord on the issue of funding. Greater Manchester has received £2 million in surge funding for test and trace, out of a £100 million pot. A £300 million pot has been provided to local authorities across England to fund local test and trace responses, while those affected by local lockdowns can bid into the £100 million pot. That is in addition to the extra grant funding of £3.7 billion that has gone to all local authorities.

There is then the economic support. There are two main components to the economic support that comes with local lockdowns. If areas have businesses that have been forced to close, the local authority has received funding to provide grants to those businesses of either £1,500 or £1,000 every three weeks, depending on the size of the business. Then there is the support for self-isolation payment, which is funding provided by central government to local government to deliver for those who have received a positive result from test and trace, have been asked to self-isolate and are on low incomes.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, the Chancellor replaced the furlough scheme in the expectation of a V-shaped recovery. We have anything but that: as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, described, the reality is severe restrictions across the country and across the nations, and experts are now calling for a second lockdown. Will the Government listen to local leaders, who understand what is happening, and save thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs that are viable in the long-term but will be lost without action, and reinstate furlough into 2021?