Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must get support to businesses as quickly as possible. I am pleased to confirm to her that guidance will be published, hopefully by the end of this week, for local authorities, and that the restart grants, which are designed to take the place of our grant scheme that runs out at the end of April, will be distributed to local authorities in the first full week—the week commencing 5 April. I hope that is a reassurance to her and her businesses, and that local authorities can get the cash to them at this vital time.

[Greg Smith]

The scale of support for businesses has been truly outstanding, but may I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the coach industry? Pre-pandemic, it already found itself heavily indebted because of requirements that the state put on it, such as the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 and Euro 6 requirements, so will he look again at how the coach industry can be supported, given the level of debt it is already in?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for shining a spotlight on this important industry; he is right to do so. I know that he will be talking to the Department for Transport about regulations for the industry, but I can tell him that we will be providing local authorities with discretionary funding of around £425 million to sit alongside the restart grants. That money, at the discretion of local areas, can be used to support businesses such as coach businesses in their areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

This Government are committed to record amounts of investment in infrastructure, both road and rail, as we heard from my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary earlier. The Budget announced upgrades for several stations in and around the midlands after representations that we heard from the fantastic Mayor, Andy Street, about the needs of his area. We remain committed to publishing the integrated rail plan in due course.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has rightly been open with the House and the public about the scale of the challenge to the public finances, but on a point of detail, further to the assumptions in the Red Book, does his Department plan to undertake dynamic scoring of the changes to corporation akin to the previous detailed CGE—computable general equilibrium —modelling since 2010, and will this be published in full?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

What a fantastically niche question from my hon. Friend, and how delighted I am to be able to answer it. He will know that scoring is a matter for the OBR. As the Budget policy costings in the Budget 2021 document set out, the costing for corporation tax has been adjusted to reflect behavioural responses to an increase in the rate of corporation tax. It is important to be clear that dynamic scoring can include a number of potential behavioural responses, such as adjustments to reflect the impact on the incentive to incorporate, on profit shifting, and on investment. If he is so minded, he can find further detail on page 196 of the OBR’s “Economic and fiscal outlook”.