Bridget Phillipson
Main Page: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)Department Debates - View all Bridget Phillipson's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Rishi Sunak
I know that my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is meeting with that particular group. In that interview, I was making a general point about the fact that I and my team had met with various representatives of those who are self-employed. It is something that we did right at the beginning of this crisis as we looked to design the self-employed scheme and we have continued to do so throughout.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
We all understand that it was hard back in March to get every detail right on Government support schemes, but nine months on, why does the Chancellor still have absolutely nothing new to say to those millions of people right across our country who have been shut out from support since the beginning?
Rishi Sunak
Perhaps the hon. Lady could let me know whether she thinks that it is right to target support on those who are majority self-employed. She refers to the millions of people, but, as I have explained from this Dispatch Box, 1.5 million of the 5 million people who file self-employed tax returns are not majority self-employed; they earn the majority of their income from things such as employment, which means that they can access, for example, the furlough scheme. That was a decision that was made because we are targeting support in a certain way and we do not know what individuals are doing. By the way, the principle of our decision was supported by every organisation that I spoke to as we designed the scheme. Indeed, they were all supportive of a much higher threshold—a less generous threshold—than the one that we ultimately used, which was a majority of 50%. They were all supportive of something higher— 60%. Rest assured, Mr Speaker, that those who are in that category have median self-employment earnings of between £2,000 and £3,000; it is not the primary source of their income. At that level, all the various other things that we have done will be of some help to them.