Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP) [V]]

Nearly a year into the restrictions necessitated by the pandemic, people are still falling through the cracks. After that length of time, they are no longer cracks: they are chasms that have been deliberately left open by the Government with millions trapped in them, like the women on maternity leave told by this Government that leave was in fact a holiday—a horrible piece of discrimination that could only have happened with our male Chancellor and male Prime Minister—or employees like the 80 staff of the Erskine Bridge hotel in my constituency who are relying on food banks and the kindness of their local community to make ends meet after they were all TUPE-ed but the HMRC report went through a day after the retrospective and arbitrary deadline for furlough.

Firing and rehiring has been almost endemic during this pandemic, which Minister after Minister has called unacceptable while refusing to act. That is unacceptable. Even in the middle of a pandemic, the Tory addiction to means testing and separating out the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor still carries on apace. Just as there are millions of people left with nothing or claiming universal credit, itself due to be slashed by over £1,000 next month, there are industries and businesses that appear to be favoured a lot. A lot of companies have made a lot of money from Government contracts in the past year. Those in the aviation sector are still waiting on the promises made by the Chancellor nearly a year ago when he spoke of a support package for airlines and airports. The reality is that we faced a potential collapse of many aviation businesses, with the loss of tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of jobs, if that support was not forthcoming. At the very least, and for a start, it is time for the UK Government to follow the Scottish Government, again, and confirm 100% rates relief for aviation, in addition to all retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, for the next financial year. The level of indebtedness in the sector, particularly given the likely slow recovery to 2019 levels, is dangerous, and any further support simply cannot and must not be loans.

We will need that growth desperately if the first weeks of Brexit are anything to go by. Over recent weeks I have spoken to road hauliers and logistics businesses and their customers, some of whom need to fill in and process 35 separate documents to facilitate export to Europe when before they needed just one. Hauliers are seeing their vehicles returned to the UK empty and are now considering downsizing and letting drivers go. Scotland’s high-value and high-quality food and drink industry is also suffering. James Withers of Scotland Food and Drink said:

“What I do know is we sell £1.2bn of Scottish food into the European Union every year and that has got an awful lot more difficult, an awful lot more expensive and an awful lot slower.”

Other countries across Europe have managed to support their workers without the red tape and testing beloved of this Government. It is time that we followed their lead as we move out of this pandemic.