Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

There have been a range of estimates due to the considerable challenges in verifying data. What I would say is that our priority has been to protect as many businesses and jobs throughout with this intervention. We have always considered the fraud risks and the need to maintain a sense that the loans need to be paid back, but the Cabinet Office and the British Business Bank are continuing to work on that mitigation strategy, where we have a mandatory system to detect multiple applications. The default risk is an evolving picture that we will keep very close to.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

What recent financial support his Department has provided to the aviation sector; and if he will make a statement.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

It is great to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. I thank my right hon. Friend for his very constructive engagement with the Government on this important issue. The Government have recently announced, as he will be aware, a package of financial support for English airports and ground handlers. This support, which will shore up jobs and reinforce local economies, will be equivalent to the business rates liabilities of each business up to a maximum of £8 million per site. It has been warmly welcomed by the Airport Operators Association.

[Chris Grayling]

I thank the Minister for that additional support for regional airports, which is very welcome, but the steps taken by the Government generally to move a small distance towards reopening the aviation sector last week go nowhere near what is needed. We face a situation in January when the Brexit transition period will be open, but our principal airports and our principal aviation links to key business centres around the world will effectively still be closed. I urge the Chancellor and the Minister to use every influence they have in government to get that dealt with and at least to get airport testing and what is necessary available on those key strategic routes.

[Jesse Norman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on testing. As he will be aware, the “test to release” regime combines a much shorter self-isolation period with a real focus on public health. As he will also know from the global travel taskforce report, we as a country are continuing to explore pre-departure testing with partner countries on a bilateral basis, including different models by which that might be delivered.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady says that she seeks targeted measures, but then seems to ignore the £1.57 billion that the Chancellor announced for the arts—exactly the sort of targeted package that she was referring to. She then says that that is not enough, but it is unclear how long the SNP would want to extend schemes such as the furlough, how targeted that would be on specific sectors and what that would mean for the supply chains for those sectors. We think that it is right to be honest with the British public and ensure that we target support beyond the eight months of the furlough, in the way that the Chancellor set out, with the job support scheme and the extension of the self-employed income support scheme.

On certainty of funding for the Scottish Government, I have had regular discussions with the Scottish Finance Secretary. I would have welcomed the hon. Lady’s acknowledgement that we had done something unprecedented in guaranteeing the Barnett consequentials in order—as the Scottish Government had requested, and responding to their wishes—to give them confidence in the funding pipeline. That had not been done before. The Government did it to give the Scottish Government confidence on the Barnett consequentials. An acknowledgement by the hon. Lady of that point would have been welcome.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

Although I am clear that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Treasury have done a Herculaen job in bringing forward schemes to support jobs in the economy, like the Chair of the Treasury Committee, I remain concerned about those sectors that are unable to operate because of Government restrictions. I cite particularly the events industry and our aviation sector—I think especially of the regional airports, which will be affected by regional restrictions. May I ask my right hon. Friend to look with colleagues across Government at ways in which we can get those sectors at least partially working again, with proper social distancing rules? I cannot believe that it is not possible to do that. If it is possible to go to a supermarket, surely it is possible to have airport testing, and socially distanced trade shows and similar to get some of those sectors moving again.

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is right that it is important, as we live with the virus and accept that it will be with us for longer, that we constantly learn from that and see what lessons there can be, not just in terms of, for example, regional air travel, but how that reads across into other matters such as non-pharmaceutical interventions. My right hon. Friend’s point is exactly why the Chancellor said yesterday that he will keep listening and striving to be creative. His track record has demonstrated that. I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend as we learn those lessons.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Bill

Lord Grayling Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

There is no doubt that the spring and early summer of 2020 will be forever remembered as one of the most testing periods in our nation’s post-war history. Covid-19 is both a health crisis and an economic crisis. It has tested the public and private sectors in equal measure, just has it has tested the population as a whole. But the virus has been brought to heel, and thanks to our collective efforts we are now in a position where it is safe to reopen our economy.

From the outset of this crisis, the Government have sought to protect business, jobs and incomes. The coronavirus jobs retention scheme and self-employment income support scheme have between them preserved millions of livelihoods through the lockdown. Meanwhile, our VAT deferrals and business rates reliefs, alongside the coronavirus business interruption loans and bounce-back loan scheme, have carried many businesses through the hardest months, so that they now have a fighting chance to recover.

In the autumn, the Government will bring forward a Budget and a spending review that will set out a longer-term strategy for the United Kingdom’s economic recovery.

However, this pandemic is not yet over. Even as we step out of lockdown, a great deal of disruption and uncertainty remains. Many businesses have yet to reopen their doors. Up and down the country, people are worried about whether their jobs will be secure when they return to work, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to the House on Wednesday to set out the Government’s plan for jobs. As a first step, the Government are introducing a one-off job retention bonus of £1,000, available to employers for each furloughed employee who is still employed as of 31 January next year.

There will also be new, high-quality jobs for hundreds of thousands of young kick-starters. We will invest £1 billion to double the number of work coaches and support the unemployed. There will be more apprenticeships, traineeships and skills funding, and we will bring forward £8.6 billion of investment in our public services and infrastructure to trigger new job creation projects around the country. However, we know that some sectors of the economy have been hit particularly hard, and that is why the Government will support the hospitality and tourism sectors by cutting VAT on food, accommodation and attractions from 20% to just 5% for the next six months. It is why the Government have put in place a £1.57 billion rescue package for theatres, museums and other cultural industries, in recognition of the 700,000 people employed in those sectors and to safeguard the incalculable contribution they make to our national life.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend and his colleagues on the Treasury Bench for what I think has been an exemplary response to an unprecedented crisis? He describes the challenges that still remain in the economy. Many people still face tough times, particularly in the events sector, where businesses remain as yet unopened. Many of the people who work in the events and entertainment sector have not, for various reasons to do with their employment or tax status, been able to take advantage of the schemes we have seen over the past few months. Will my hon. Friend, together with his Treasury colleagues, look at whether there are additional things we can do to support those sectors and those people in the months ahead, because for them times are still tough?

[John Glen]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind remarks. There is more work to be done, and I acknowledge the challenges faced by different industries in different ways. We will continue to look very carefully at further interventions that we could make and shall make in the Budget later this year.

I turn to the housing market, which is another example of a sector that has experienced considerable disruption and which brings me to the subject of this Bill. The Government’s plan for jobs will support the construction sector by injecting new confidence and certainty into the housing market. It will do so by ensuring that anyone buying a main home for under £500,000 before the end of March next year will pay no stamp duty whatever.

A thriving housing market is critical for growth and jobs in this country. Most obviously, a healthy labour market relies on people being able to move home to be closer to the jobs that match their skills, but the building industry is itself a major contributor to jobs and prosperity in the country, adding £39 billion a year to the UK economy. House building alone supports up to three quarters of a million jobs, and let us not forget the many related sectors that benefit from property transactions: estate agents, removal companies, furniture retailers, DIY stores, self-employed decorators and so forth. The lockdown sadly brought much of that trade to a juddering halt.

Rightmove estimates that 175,000 sellers were prevented from coming to the market between March and May this year. Meanwhile, HMRC data shows that residential property transactions in May were about 50% lower than the same month last year. For the first time in eight years, house prices have fallen.

Economic Update

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that during the transition period this year we are still constrained, but he can rest assured that from next year, when we have our full freedom, we can take advantage of all these things and ensure that our local economies benefit as they should.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Chancellor’s announcements on employment programmes. Jobs are vital going forward and this is exactly the right thing to do. I am particularly pleased to see the expansion of the sector-based work academies—one of the programmes we launched when I was Employment Minister 10 years ago. I can assure the Chancellor that we do not need to learn too many lessons from the Opposition, given our record on employment in the period up to the crisis, but I am concerned about one group on the jobs front: those in the aerospace and aviation sectors. Will he keep them firmly in mind and perhaps look at whether aviation could be included in the VAT reductions, or look at other measures to support a sector that is vital to our economy but has been very badly affected?

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend is right about the difficulties facing the aviation and aerospace industries, and of course I will keep them very much uppermost in my mind as we go through the next few months. More generally, I pay tribute to the work that he did when he had those briefs. He knows at first hand what it takes to get unemployment down, get people into work and give them hope and opportunity. I hope that we can build on the success that he had, because we will absolutely need to deliver for our young people in the coming months.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am glad that the announcement we made yesterday was warmly welcomed across the cultural sector, by institutions large and small. I can assure the hon. Lady that the support package is not just for large institutions; it will find its way to all our local cultural institutions that play such an important part in our local communities. The Culture Secretary and his team will be here just after Question Time to answer further questions.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I thank the Chancellor for yesterday’s welcome announcement, but will he bear in mind the freelancers and those in other forms of employment in the sector who continue to struggle as he plans for tomorrow’s statement and beyond? We also need to move ahead with a green recovery, so will he consider providing additional incentives to develop hydrogen infrastructure in this country? I do not believe that we can achieve our emissions objectives with battery technology alone; we will need hydrogen vehicles as well. The Government really need to do a lot to encourage the development of such infrastructure

[Rishi Sunak]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend that we should put reaching our net zero commitments at the heart of our recovery. He will have heard our recent announcement about green homes grants, which shows our commitment in this area. I know that he has a lot of experience in hydrogen transportation, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts on that so that they can be incorporated into our future plan.

Covid-19

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con) [V]]

I will hit a different tone to start. I want to congratulate the Chancellor on his rapid actions to underpin employment across our economy and to support the worst-affected businesses. It was a huge package delivered very quickly and very necessarily.

It is also true, however, that there are a number of businesses that are not formally required to close but which have been unable to continue trading because of social distancing guidelines set out by their professional bodies or regulators. This is despite the fact that they are formally listed by the core Government rules as being able to continue to trade. Dentists, vets, physiotherapists and many similar professions have seen all their income disappear. I ask the Government to ensure that local authorities have complete discretion over the remaining allocated funds for business support to target such individual businesses that may not fit the textbook but have been particularly badly affected. In addition, there are self-employed groups, including the directors of small companies and those on short-term PAYE contracts, for example, in the media and entertainment industries, for whom the impact of the virus will be long-lasting. Will the Government therefore consider whether there are any other ways of easing the impact on them?

I am concerned that many of the professional bodies and agencies putting the overall principles of the lockdown into guidance for businesses have erred heavily—and, to be honest, sometimes unnecessarily—on the side of caution in drawing up those guidelines. That has an impact on business, the income of professionals and employment. For example, why can local vets not carry on working as normal, with PPE, as long as pet owners socially distance while they wait for their pets? If emergency physiotherapy and dentistry is allowed with appropriate protections, why can routine work not start again? One example I came across in the past few days is that dog walking businesses are having to stop their work because for safety reasons the guidance does not allow dogs from different households to be mixed; the dogs in the park on a Saturday have not quite worked out the need for social distance between households. People are losing their livelihoods because of that. We need common sense, not excessive risk aversion.

From an international perspective, we already know the possible link between the virus and the trade in wildlife. We also know that much of that trade is illegal, shipping animals such as pangolins from other parts of the world to wet markets in Asia. This is not the first time that a virus is suspected to have made the jump between animals and human beings in the environment of wet markets. This really has to be the moment in which there is a concerted international effort to bring to an end that illegal trade, and to bring to an end the practice of wet markets, which have potentially such significant impacts on the health of the humans who use those markets and, as we now see, around the world.

There is another issue. With tourism around the world on lockdown, this is also a time when conservation in Africa and the battle against that illegal wildlife trade faces an existential crisis, leaving a gaping hole for poachers and illegal traders. I urge the Government to channel more of our international aid budget to support vital conservation projects, in particular projects that protect species from poaching, and defend the species that are most at risk from the collapse of local economies in Africa.

These are momentous times. I pay a huge tribute to the key workers in my constituency, particularly at Epsom Hospital, who have done such an incredible job in the past few weeks. I think the Government should take credit for much of what they have done. There are challenges, there are things we will not get right and there is more to do, but we have to win through, get our economy back on the road and defeat the virus.

Budget Resolutions

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

Inevitably, the debate tonight has been overshadowed by the statement we have heard. This should be a moment for us all to reflect on the huge challenge we face, and above all, on the health of our nation. I particularly pay tribute to the staff at Epsom Hospital in my constituency, who are already working hard and dealing with the most challenging of situations, but also with the tragic loss of two lives in the last few days. This team of people constantly work hard for our community and face enormous challenges, and I pay enormous tribute to them. Indeed, I pay tribute to all of the health service workers who serve my constituency in the primary care sector and in the community care sector. We are going to owe those people an awful lot in the weeks ahead.

I also pay tribute to the teams of volunteers coming forward in my constituency and adjoining areas to offer support in particular to the elderly, who are going to face a very difficult few weeks, as we heard from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care this afternoon. I pay tribute particularly to Paul Baker, a man from just down the road in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). In the last four or five days, he has built a team of volunteers to help deliver support to the elderly as they need it in the coming weeks, and I fear a lot of support and help is going to be needed. We are going to owe an awful lot to the health service workers and to the volunteers who will be, and indeed are already, making a difference in the weeks ahead.

However, this is a Budget debate and it is a debate about our economy. The other group we must be very mindful of today are the self-employed and those who run small businesses. They were already facing a tough enough situation in the last few days, but for them today’s announcement will have come as a bucket of the proverbial. Their lives will be immensely difficult. The Budget contained a number of important provisions that I strongly welcome, such as measures on business rates, or additional support to be channelled through local authorities. There has been a lot of debate about whether we should get rid of or continue the fuel duty freeze, but right now, keeping fuel prices as low as possible is enormously important to this country’s self-employed, as they seek to keep their businesses afloat in the weeks ahead. It is inevitable that the Treasury and Chancellor will have to consider further measures to support those groups.

There are families tonight whose income comes entirely from self-employment, and they are asking how they will pay the bills in the weeks and months ahead. I echo those who say that we must consider every possible way to provide support for those people as we go forward. This is a critical moment for our nation and economy, and I welcome the fact that the Chancellor has chosen to make a large injection of cash into the economy, and to back that up with a huge investment programme for the years ahead. We will need all that to get through the challenges we now face, and we must take innovative steps to help those most affected. Above all, we must get this country, and our economy, through this. We must save lives, ensure that we rebuild prosperity for the future, and move on from what I fear will be a difficult time in our history.

Alongside that we must meet other challenges. I welcome measures in the Budget that encourage motorists to move away from conventional petrol and diesel vehicles, as well as incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles. I hope that we also build hydrogen into the mix for the future, as we will need it. Electric traction does not yet work for heavier vehicles, and hydrogen is an important part of that future. I also add a caveat. There is a lot of talk about going as fast as we possibly can to make the transition to a greener vehicle fleet, and I endorse that ambition. However, we can go only as fast as the technology will allow us, and if we seek to go faster, we will end up doing damage to our society and economy. We cannot transform technology any faster than it is available to be transformed, and particularly in the wake of the current situation, we must also protect the future jobs of those who work in the automotive sector.

It was right for the Budget to postpone the reduction in corporation tax and put that money into the health service, and today’s statement has shown how important it is for the health service to receive that additional resource—and more—in the weeks ahead. We must also remember the benefits of being a low-tax economy. I was employment Minister in 2010 when unemployment was 2.6 million and rising. A decade later, unemployment is a fraction of what it was then, and all through those years I was convinced that one reason for that reduction was because we built a highly competitive tax regime for business, and for investors who sought to come to this country. When we have come through the current troubles and set our economy back on a path to the future, we should not forget that lesson. If we are a competitive place to do business, that means jobs and prosperity for our people, and we will keep unemployment low.

I regard the reduction in unemployment as one of this Government’s great achievements of the past 10 years, and despite the turbulent times that lie ahead, I want to see that achievement solidified for the future. We will do that by ensuring that this country is a great place to do business in, and we must not lose track of that as we take what might be difficult decisions in the weeks and months ahead.

Above all else, this Budget was a stepping stone towards dealing with the challenges we face. I have no doubt that more measures will need to be taken—we have seen the central banks step forward to inject capital into the economy as support for businesses and the rest—and I suspect we will have to do more. Above all, we must do enough to protect the lives of our people, and put this country back on the path to prosperity after a difficult period economically. The Budget was a step in the right direction, but we have big challenges ahead, and we must all live up to them.