Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)Department Debates - View all Chi Onwurah's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Like many of us, I have spent happy hours in the Blackpool Tower ballroom, and I know it well. It would be a fine thing to see Blackpool open up again as fast as possible. I repeat the answer I gave a moment ago: we cannot say yet what the tiering will be, but mass testing does offer a route forward for Blackpool and all its attractions—illuminations included.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Small Business Saturday is only a couple of days after the lifting of this lockdown, but the fantastic small businesses in Newcastle do not know how or whether they will be able to trade. Many small businesspeople are excluded from all support, for one reason or another, and their losses are mounting, so will the Prime Minister set out the per head economic support he will be providing to local authorities to help small businesses make it through to the promised land of covid-free vaccines?
The Prime Minister
The local authorities have been given about £4.6 billion so far to support them through the pandemic and to help them to support hard-hit businesses in their areas, and that is on top of the investment that we have made in the VAT cuts—the business rate cuts—right the way through to next year. Altogether, it is about a £200 billion package of support. The whole point of coming out into the tiers now, or next week, is to allow small businesses to get going again. It was awful to have the restrictions that we have had. We hope that we will be able to take them off and keep them off, but clearly that depends on everybody doing their bit.