Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and Stephen Hammond

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

At the start of my remarks, I place on record my appreciation of and gratitude to the Government for the coronavirus job retention scheme. In Wimbledon, it has meant that 12,500 people have a chance of their livelihoods and their futures.

Inevitably, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) has already said, as this country returns to work and the economy starts to revive, we are likely to see a very different economy from that which we saw pre-covid. We are wrong to try to pretend anything other than that. While some say, “Let’s extend furlough, but in a targeted way,” the questions to whom, how much and for how long remain unanswered.

In July, surely the Chancellor was right to say,

“I will never accept unemployment as an unavoidable outcome.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 974.]

As we look to the future, instead of a blanket extension of the furlough, is the Chancellor not right to ask for new, innovative, creative and effective ways to support the economy and people’s livelihoods? It is not a question of whether we are supporting jobs, but of how we do it.

On the protection of jobs, I have spoken about the arts sector many times. I say to my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench, the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), that I welcome the recent package for the arts sector, but he will know that most of that is going to the institutions rather than the workers. May I suggest that, particularly for those in the theatre sector, he looks at a wage subsidy scheme that allows them to continue so that when theatres reopen, they will be there? Much the same applies to the events industry, which is a huge industry with a lot of jobs in Wimbledon.

The Government have made much of targeting infrastructure, and they are right to do so, but they must look at the economic activities and train people for those activities in the future. Economic development zones are not a new idea but, armed with investment and training incentives, they would be zones of opportunity, investment and employment. Those zones could be aligned to, for instance, a new technologies adoption fund: 3D printing will be the tool-making of the future, and for people to have those jobs, we need to skill them for the future.

For young people, the prospect of securing a foothold in the labour market as they transition from education to employment should be a realistic ambition. This Government’s plan for jobs—£100 million for 18 and 19-year-old school leavers—is clearly a step in the right direction. It is also right that the Government are looking at how they can support the people who have taken those courses into jobs. I welcome the support for apprenticeships and for new trainees being taken on, but may I suggest to my right hon. Friend one way of embedding that? We all know that work experience gives rise to permanent jobs, and I encourage him to look at ways of supporting people coming off those courses into work experience and into permanent jobs.

History also teaches us that downturns and recessions often temporarily remove that step into work for young people, but the over-40s, who find their jobs being eradicated, also need help. While I commend the work being done by the Government in doubling the number of job coaches and in some of the retraining schemes, I ask my right hon. Friend, when the Government are looking at support for jobs, to embrace those schemes and make them and the flexible support fund available to the over-40s as well.

Finally, the Government acted with extraordinary speed and effectiveness to create the coronavirus job retention scheme. That scheme was the right scheme at the right time, and 50% of those people have now returned to work. That does not make it the right scheme for all time.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

HMRC estimates that the level of fraudulent or incorrect claims under the CJRS to be 5% to 10%— between £1.75 billion and £3.5 billion—so even at the lower end, that money would be useful in extending the benefits of the scheme. When I asked about this, only five individuals had asked for the data that is held about them and about who has actually secured the funds that have come to them under the scheme. Does the hon. Member agree that further transparency would allow more of this money to be, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) has said, available to people to extend the scheme?

[Stephen Hammond]

I am not aware of those numbers, but I thank the hon. Lady for making them available to me. I am sure that the Minister on the Front Bench will have heard her words. I want to make sure that the scheme has not been operated fraudulently, because we need all the money to go to people and to some of the great retraining schemes that the Government are introducing now. As I have said, the investment in future prosperity and the commitment to look at new and innovative ways of protecting and creating jobs is the key, and it is the right approach for the future.