Derek Thomas
Main Page: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)Department Debates - View all Derek Thomas's debates with the HM Treasury
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am terribly sorry, but I missed out the hon. Member for St Ives—Derek Thomas.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope it is worth waiting for.
Can I thank the Chief Secretary for all that is being done to help my constituents in west Cornwall and on Scilly? One of the great successes of recent years is the job growth across Cornwall, and that is because small businesses have been set up by entrepreneurs—individuals who know they cannot get a big job in big business, because they do not exist in Cornwall, so they have set up their business. The problem is that they are very early in their business, and they are growing, maturing and flourishing, but this year has been a disaster for them. They are at a point now where they just do not know if it is worth continuing, because of his second lockdown being announced, and they just do not know what the future holds. Will the Chief Secretary look very carefully at how we can encourage these people to stick with it, but also look at, as we have discussed already this afternoon many times, the support that is available to these fledgling businesses so they really have the finances to sustain these jobs? We must make sure these businesses can be part of the recovery that we will so badly need next year and beyond.
Steve Barclay
As my hon. Friend knows, it was largely down to his representations that specific support was put in place—for example, to maintain the ferry link that I know was critical for his constituents—and he deserves great credit for the convincing case that he presented to the Treasury, which secured that additional funding. On the wider point about support to the business community, it is in recognition of the importance of those small businesses that the Government have allocated over £13 billion of support to the self-employment income support scheme, but it is also why the Chancellor has put in place additional measures, such as extending the loans that are available to help those businesses get through this period to, hopefully, the more beneficial period as we come out of the winter period.