Business of the House

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We always want happiness rather than misery, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. I note the c2c has announced recently that it is

“introducing a more sustainable and resilient timetable, which should result in fewer short-notice cancellations.”

That sounds like one of those pieces of verbiage we sometimes get from bureaucracies, but we await this with interest and I am sure my hon. Friend will remind the House if it is not delivered upon. In the meantime, I will raise his point with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Chancellor told me that the Government grants to councils to use to support their local economies could be used “as they see fit”, but that was not true, because many freelancers and self-employed people do not qualify for schemes such as the one announced by the Liverpool City Region Mayor, Steve Rotheram. These people do not qualify for the national schemes, they do not qualify for the local schemes and they do not quality for universal credit either. So will the Leader of the House confirm that the Chancellor was wrong yesterday? Will the Leader of the House admit that it is time the Government stepped up and dealt with the burning injustice facing so many of our working people who have been left behind in this crisis?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think this has to be put in the context of the overall support provided by the Government, with the amount of money now running into the hundreds of billions of pounds. Specifically for councils, £4.6 billion of unring-fenced support for councils has been paid, and there has been £1.1 billion to support local businesses and £10 billion in business rates relief. I absolutely accept that not everybody is able to get all the support that is available and that is a fair point for the hon. Gentleman to make, but the Chancellor is absolutely right to say that there is £4.6 billion of additional unring-fenced funding for councils.