Derek Twigg
Main Page: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)Department Debates - View all Derek Twigg's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. Everybody knows that Burton is inescapably linked to high-quality beer; anyone who has been to Burton knows that fact. My heart goes out to the hospitality industry, which has been hit so hard. Of course schemes are available nationally, including the furlough and the support for businesses. There has been more support for the hospitality, leisure and accommodation businesses, and there will be cash grants for businesses that are closed under the new tiering system, to try to support people through what are, inevitably, very difficult times.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Although I am pleased that the Prime Minister and Secretary of State have listened to representations from me and other colleagues about the importance of reopening gyms, golf and collective worship, I am disappointed that we heard nothing from the Prime Minister about helping small business people and small businesses in my constituency who have received little or no help whatsoever; they have been financially excluded, and the Government should look again at that. Following a freedom of information request, through my local clinical commissioning group, I compared the GP referrals from September this year with those from September 2019 and found that there has been a huge drop in the number of people referred, for example, for cardio, gastric, trauma and orthopaedics. Although we have heard from the Government that they will put extra financial resources into the NHS, how will the Secretary of State provide the extra doctors, nurses and specialists to get the waiting lists down and to meet the surge in referrals?
Matt Hancock
I am glad to say that we are hiring large numbers of people into the NHS—over 13,000 more nurses over the last year, for instance. I am grateful to the Chancellor for putting an extra £3 billion into the NHS next year to deal with some of the backlogs that were inevitably caused by the virus. In answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, let me say that there will be grants of up to £3,000 per month for businesses forced to close by restrictions in England and also backdated grants of up to £2,100 per month for businesses in tier 2 and tier 3 areas that have suffered from reduced demand—this is on top of the national schemes. I reassure him that we are doing everything we can to support businesses in these difficult times.