Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the importance of the aerospace industry to our economy. It is, in common with aerospace industries across the globe, suffering a deep depression in demand for all the obvious reasons. He can rest assured that we engage regularly with the companies in that sector. In particular, to support their future success, we are investing heavily in R&D alongside those companies to make sure we remain on the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing capability.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

  Does my right hon. Friend agree that the benefits of the Government’s tax-free childcare scheme, which gives eligible families a 20% contribution to the cost of childcare and works alongside the 30 hours funded childcare that is available to working families, cannot be overstated as the economy reopens to my constituents and across the UK?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of good childcare and he is right to highlight that the Government support people with 20% of their childcare costs up to a cap of £2,000 through tax-free childcare. I can also tell him that, in recognition of the importance of this issue, we made some adjustments to how tax-free childcare operated during the pandemic, so that if someone’s income fell below the minimum income requirement as a result of what was happening they would continue to receive financial support up until the end of October.