Coronavirus: Employment Support Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Coronavirus: Employment Support

Bill Esterson Excerpts
Thursday 19th March 2020

(4 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Glen Portrait John Glen
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I thank my hon. Friend for his points; he raises a number of interesting ideas. He is absolutely right about the voluntary sector needing support. As I have indicated, there will be a package coming and different Departments are working together to make this as effective and comprehensive as possible. His constituency has a number of issues regarding the hospitality and leisure sector, and I am very aware of the representations he has been making to Government over the previous few days.

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
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Letting many people get into rent or mortgage arrears or asking businesses to take on debt are not the answers. They are just going to make the crisis worse—[Hon. Members: “And longer.”] Yes, thank you. Every business, every employee, every self-employed person and everybody in the third sector needs to know that their living costs will be covered. The Government need to show the urgency that the Minister talks about and they need to show it today. Will the Chancellor come back today and make a statement on how they will deliver this?

John Glen Portrait John Glen
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The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right that we need a comprehensive package that deals with businesses, the voluntary sector and individual employees of different categories. We are looking very carefully at the best way to do that, in addition to the significant package of measures we have introduced. I feel his frustration and I will take all these points back and make sure that they are addressed.