Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Gary Sambrook Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to publish clear and fair national criteria for financial support for jobs and businesses in areas facing additional restrictions, to be voted on in Parliament; and calls on the Government to make good on its claim that workers faced with hardship who are subject to the Job Support Scheme extension will receive at least 80 percent of their previous incomes.

I start by placing on record my thanks to the staff at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport who recently cared for my aunt, who died of coronavirus last week. I speak today not just as a Member of this House, or just as a Mancunian, but as someone like the many others across our city and our country who have in the past few weeks lost loved ones to this terrible virus. That, more than anything, is why I come here wanting the Government not to fail but to succeed, because lives literally depend on it.

We know that a public health response will save lives only if it is supported by a fair economic settlement. The British people want to do the right thing, and they will do the right thing, but we need to support them in doing so. That is why I was so appalled by what I witnessed yesterday. I was with fellow Greater Manchester MPs on a Zoom call with the Health Secretary, who was handing us scraps from the Prime Minister, while our elected Mayor found out from Twitter. The Government then tried to blame it all on our Mayor for not doing what he was ordered to do from Whitehall. I have heard of power without accountability, but apparently the Government’s idea of devolution is accountability without the power.

We were offered £8 per head—or, to put it another way, 30 seconds of work for a consultant working on the collapsed test and trace system. Let me say this: £8 per person is an insult. And now the Government are attempting to play us off against each other across GM. Well, let me tell the Prime Minister: our Mayor stood up for Greater Manchester, but he spoke for Great Britain. Indeed, his call for Parliament to have a say and a vote on these measures is one that so many Government Members have made.

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

On the point about votes in Parliament, many of us called for votes in this place on national restrictions a couple of weeks ago but, unfortunately, near enough all Opposition Members did not bother to turn up for those votes, including the one on the rule of six. If the Opposition get their way and have votes on localised restrictions, will they even turn up?

[Angela Rayner]

As the hon. Member has turned up today, I hope he will do the right thing and support people with an economic package so that they can do the right thing and we can save people’s lives across Greater Manchester and the whole of this country. I hope he will do the right thing and support us in the Lobby tonight.

The Government have not given us the chance to have our say, so today we are giving the House the chance to do so. Our motion calls for the Government to bring forward fair national criteria for financial support in areas facing additional restrictions, and it provides for Members to have a vote on the criteria.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

Unfortunately, during today’s debate and over the last couple of weeks, we have seen Opposition Members trying to have it both ways. This is a moment of national crisis, yet we have seen no attempt at being constructive and no positive ideas at all. This Government have delivered a package of £200 billion for this country, which must be seen in an international context, when we look at some of the particular measures that the Government have introduced to protect jobs and livelihoods across the country. We have seen £40 billion for furlough and 9.6 million jobs protected, over 11,000 of which were in my Birmingham, Northfield constituency. We have seen the new job support scheme and £9 billion of extra money for welfare. We have seen VAT cuts for hospitality and grants and loans for businesses across the country, which have enabled jobs and businesses to succeed, looking after people.

What have we got from the Opposition? They are complaining about the impact of these restrictions on businesses, but what would they do instead? They would close them all, causing untold misery to many millions of people across this country in terms of jobs. Would it work? They do not know. They would have circuit breaker after circuit breaker, or fire break after fire break—call it what you like; it is a lockdown—and have them multiple times. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) pointed out, the very definition of madness, as Einstein said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The Opposition ask for more money for local government. Well, we have seen the consequences of that in my Birmingham, Northfield constituency. For years, the council has attempted to put a bus lane down Bristol Road South, and it has used covid response money in order to put that bus lane there because it did not have the guts to do the consultation in the first place. Instead of talking to people about what response to covid they wanted, it imposed it overnight. That is why, working with my local councillors, we have collected a petition of over 2,700 names against this ludicrous idea, which was all in the name of protecting the city against covid.

What we have seen throughout this debate is opportunism and no constructive ideas. There is no perfect response to the virus. This is not about the UK acting on its own against it; it is about the whole world’s response. Everybody is learning as we go along. I have confidence that this Government are listening and, most importantly, reacting.