Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) [V]]

There is surely no more important debate at the moment than how we support businesses and individuals through the pandemic. Just last week, it was confirmed that the UK economy has suffered its worst slump in any year since we began recording gross domestic product after the second world war. This morning, we learned that the unemployment rate is 5.1% and that in my constituency of Edinburgh West, a relatively affluent area of Scotland, it is 4%, having increased by more than a third since this time last year. We have all the evidence we need that businesses and individuals need support.

For most people, businesses are about the individuals. The troubles we are going through will come as no surprise to thousands of shops, households, small businesses, retailers at airports, taxi drivers, cafés, pubs and restaurants—they are all suffering and they need our support. That is why we are all watching very carefully for what the Chancellor says next week. We are hoping—and trying to persuade him—that there will be a further extension of furlough. The summer is not enough; it needs to go at least until the end of the year. We need to give businesses time to recover and we need to give people certainty. We need to give them reassurance that the safety net will not disappear right away. The vaccine will need time to be effective and we will need time to recover. The Chancellor should bear that in mind next week.

I think we have all felt the impact through our constituents and the daily calls we receive. We know that there is nothing more important than supporting businesses and individuals through the recovery. That should be the first thing we think about every day: putting the recovery first. Sadly in Scotland, we have a devolved Administration who are not doing that. They are focusing on an independence debate that many of us feel is inappropriate at this time. We need the strength of the UK economy and we need the ability to work together. For example, we need the strength that comes from our tourism industry: 80% of tourists in Scotland come from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Businesses all need our support, they need certainty and they need the strength of the United Kingdom. That is what I hope the Chancellor and the Government will provide next week. I also hope that they will think about relief from business rates and VAT for small businesses that are losing money and going out of business through no fault of their own, because they are following the rules. We need to put their recovery and our recovery first.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We were going to go to Stoke-on-Trent, but the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) has to be dressed as if he were here in the Chamber. We will try to come back to Mr Gullis in due course, but we will go now to Chesterfield and Toby Perkins.