Oral Answers to Questions

Fay Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, we have made enormous strides in increasing the amount of daily testing that is available, but it is not yet enough in either Wales or England, or elsewhere in the United Kingdom, to meet the huge rise in demand that we have seen over the past few weeks. The UK Government have set a target of a 500,000-a-day testing capacity for the end of October, and we are also increasing the number of testing sites to 500 by the end of October. Across Wales and the United Kingdom, Governments of all sorts of different political persuasions are working hard and working together to increase testing and to meet the demand.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to support people back into work in Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)]

By the end of July, more than 400,000 Welsh jobs had been supported by the coronavirus job retention scheme, while £295 million has been provided to support 110,000 self-employed people. Since the start of March, that is at least 510,000 people in Wales who have been supported directly by the UK Government.

[Fay Jones]

More than 77,000 meals were enjoyed in Brecon and Radnorshire as part of the eat out to help out scheme created by the UK Treasury. This provided a very welcome boost to the hospitality and tourism sectors in my constituency, which I particularly welcome as those sectors largely employ more women than men. Will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging the Welsh Government to do their part by creating a similar scheme and getting more women back into the workplace?

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. Having visited her constituency twice, I think, in the recent past, I know just how much she has done to promote these schemes. Another value to the eat out to help out scheme is to remind everybody, whether members of the public or Members of this House, for that matter, of the importance of supporting local businesses in every possible way that we can as we climb out of these horrible few months. The work that my hon. Friend has done, and that of the Treasury, has been a pretty good start.