Business of the House

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I have a particular affection for Bentleys, as I have both a 1936 and a 1968 version, and they are the most wonderful cars. Bentley is a great company, of which the country can be very proud, and of which he, as its representative in his constituency, can be very proud. We have to try to restore our economy to full health, and there is a range of support that I have already mentioned. There is a debate this afternoon on the support being offered to UK industries during the pandemic, and it will be worth bringing up at that point how things will need to evolve and how the economy will change fundamentally because of this crisis.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP) [V]]

The Leader of the House will be aware of the support group Excluded, which has been established to assist the 3 million self-employed people and personal services companies in the UK that have been left without any Government support during this pandemic. The Prime Minister said to me on Tuesday in this place:

“There are some people who perhaps have not got the support that they felt they needed, because of the difficulties in identifying what is appropriate and because of technical difficulties of all kinds.”—[Official Report, 23 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 1192.]

There are not “some people” left behind. There are 3 million construction workers, cleaners, caterers, photographers, sound engineers, architects and consultants, including many in my Angus constituency, and there is not a constituency on these islands that has not been so affected. It is not too late to put this right, so may we have a debate to establish how and when the Government can assist these people to ensure that their businesses trade into the future?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think the debate later on will cover this subject, but I would point out how much the Government have done: 9.1 million people are in the furloughing scheme; 2.6 million self-employed people are receiving help; 2.3 million people have got on to universal credit since 12 March; 49,000—nearly 50,000—loans to the value of £10 billion have been made to small and medium-sized enterprises; 279 loans, with a value of nearly £2 billion, have been given to larger businesses; and there have been 860,000 bounce-back loans to the value of £26.3 billion. These are enormous sums that have been provided by taxpayers to support businesses through these difficult times. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that some people have not benefited from all or any of these schemes, but what has been done is the most enormous package produced by any British Government at any point in our history, and it will ensure that the chances of an economic bounce-back are as high as possible.