The Economy

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend knows from his own business career the importance of cash flow, and he is absolutely right. He mentioned the almost 2,000 businesses in his constituency; on average, they probably took a bounce back loan of about £30,000. This extension to 10 years will reduce the average monthly repayment from something over £500 to just around £300, which will provide thousands of pounds of cash-flow relief to his 1,800 businesses, but also to 1 million others around the United Kingdom.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

As we have heard, around 3 million people across the country were excluded from support during the first stage of the pandemic. Yesterday I was contacted by a wedding photographer in my constituency who is struggling to pay his mortgage and feed his family, and the prospect of many more months of uncertainty is terrifying for him and many others in similar industries and sectors, such as event planning, that are unable to operate in anything like normality at the moment. What assurances can the Chancellor offer that the measures he has announced today will not continue to exclude people such as my constituent and many more across the country?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned mortgages, and I am sure his constituent, like many others, will have benefited from the mortgage holidays that we put in place, which my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary helped to organise with the banking system. Those provided six months of mortgage holidays for people, and, indeed, one in six mortgages across the UK was able to benefit from that generous scheme.