The Economy

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments; having held the positions that she has had in government, she knows better than most the importance of business to our economy and to driving our economy. She is absolutely right that businesses will need time to prepare. As I have alluded to, work is already under way in government, through engaging with businesses, unions and others, to ensure that when we are in a position to get to phase 2 and refine the social and economic restrictions, work has already taken place to prepare everyone and give them suitable notice, so that they can kick-start the engines of our economy.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) [V]]

I welcome the micro-loans scheme, but may I press the Chancellor to do more for the self-employed—in particular the self-employed who are not in his scheme, many of whom have only modest incomes, such as cleaners, builders, taxi drivers and musicians? Such self-employed people often work through limited companies, relying on dividends for income, and are getting little or no help, with devastating consequences. I know that the Treasury is worried about fraud, but I wrote to the Chancellor on 8 April with a Liberal Democrat proposal to help those self-employed people and protect the taxpayer. Will he please now help self-employed people who are dependent on dividends, before it is too late?

[Rishi Sunak]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned groups that I engaged with specifically in the design of the self-employed scheme, and who I am fairly certain released reasonably positive comments on the day it was released, notably the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association and, I believe, one of the musicians’ federations. I spoke to them both personally as we developed the scheme, and I believe that they were very supportive at the time.

We have designed these schemes at pace to get support to as many people as we can in the time available, and the decisions that we have taken enable that. At this point, complicated changes to the schemes would just mean delay in getting support to millions of people who are either already in receipt of it or very shortly about to receive it.