Covid-19: Road Map

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think my right hon. Friend speaks for many people in the country when he says that. We do have a very tough regime on international travel—one of the toughest in the world—and we will certainly be making sure we learn all the lessons we need to about the early handling of the pandemic.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

Events and exhibitions companies in my constituency are still struggling to get any support for lost business. The fact that they are not customer facing means that they do not get the retail, hospitality and leisure grant. The fact that they have not actually been forced to close, although they service businesses that have, means that they have lost out on the council’s now closed local restrictions support grant. They are not arts organisations as such, so they do not get the Arts Council funding, and the advice and guidance that is being given to local councils about what grants they should be giving to the events and exhibitions sector is incredibly vague and inconsistent. What reassurance can the Prime Minister give me that, in the Chancellor’s Budget next week, there will finally be help for those companies, like the ones in my constituency, that are absolutely on their last legs?

[The Prime Minister]

I am acutely conscious of the businesses that have fallen through the cracks, as it were—wholesalers, for instance, that have found it difficult to qualify under one scheme or another—and we are doing absolutely everything we can to make sure that we give the support that people want. There is extra discretionary funding available for councils to support such businesses, and the hon. Member will be hearing more, certainty from the Chancellor next week.