Economic Update

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Let us see if we can go a bit faster to try to get everybody in.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP) [V]]

The Young Women’s Trust found that because of covid 1.5 million women are losing income; 69% are claiming benefits to the first time; half of young mums are unable to keep or find employment because of childcare costs; and a third of women will not report sexual harassment for fear of being fired. Can the Chancellor therefore tell me how his Government can possibly continue to justify the five-week wait, have statutory sick pay at a disgracefully low £94 a week, and exclude many female business owners from help? Will he take proper action for women, who are bearing the brunt of this pandemic?

[Rishi Sunak]

All the support that we have put in place is blind to gender; no one is excluded on the basis of gender and I do not think it is fair to suggest otherwise. One of the reasons that I have been so keen to try to support the hospitality industry throughout this period, and to encourage people to be able to go back to it when it was open, was because of the social justice aspect. It is an industry that disproportionately employs women and other groups that we want to try to see protected. That is why it is a very important industry to me, and we must get it back to its former glory.