Self-employed Persons: Financial Support

Debate between John McDonnell and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

For some within this population—not all—there will be some solution already through the £5 million loan that is available as of yesterday. That will not cover the entirety of this population, but, in accordance with the business needs of some who are self-employed, there is support. For some of the population—again, by no means all—there will be some relief through some of the measures the Chancellor set out on property and business rate relief, but part of the complexity of the target population is that different measures work for different groups. That is part of what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is working through, but I recognise the point my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and others have raised. We do recognise the importance of timing on this issue.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Can I say to the right hon. Gentleman and other Members that no one is looking for a row over this? We are looking for a solution. The reason some Members became irritated earlier was the emphasis, in one of the Chancellor’s responses, on the rich self-employed. They are not the people who are contacting us. The ones who are contacting me at the moment are the plumbers and the hairdressers. Yes, some freelance artists and others are in desperate straits, but I do not think there is a Member who has not received representations. We are just looking for something we can go back with today to give them some assurance. We know how complicated it is, but we have to find a solution quickly. I urge the Government to at least set a deadline, so we can go back to our members and say, “By the end of this week, there will be a proposal brought forward.”

The other assurance that people want was raised by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). If we can go back and say, “You will get the equivalent of the 80% or whatever that was offered to other workers,” it would lift people’s spirits that something was on the way.

Many self-employed workers, just like other workers, are having to sign themselves off sick. They do not have access to statutory sick pay—still. I have to say that asking people to survive on £94.25 a week is just an impossible ask. When the Secretary of State for Health was asked on television last week whether he could live on it, he said no. I agree with him. We need the level of sick pay raised for everybody if we are expecting them to choose not to work, and not have to choose between health and hardship.

Finally, in Treasury questions my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) raised a point about different categories of workers. I know that it is complicated, but we do have to consider agency workers. I have had many emails and telephone calls from people working in the construction sector who do not know whether they should be at work today, or whether they would be safe if they were. Let us use this opportunity to look at the exploitation by payroll companies and umbrella companies of people who in many instances are forcibly designated as self-employed.

We do not want a row over this; we want to work with the Government. In fact, Anneliese and I are happy to come and work a shift in the Treasury, if that is what Ministers want. [Interruption.] We might come up with slightly different solutions. We need this quickly and we need it to be effective as soon as possible.