Economic Update

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

It is just not right to say that people have not been able to receive any support. Obviously, I cannot comment on the individual circumstances of every single person, but we have put in place £280 billion of direct support in a multitude of different ways, and then there is additional support that is not even fiscal—for example, mortgage holidays, which now one in six, or one in seven mortgage holders have taken advantage of. So yes, it may be the case that people have not been helped in the exact way they wanted, but with £280 billion of support in literally 20 different ways, this Government are doing what they can to provide reassurance and security to millions of people and businesses through this difficult crisis.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) [V]]

The Welsh hospitality sector employs over 8.5% of the Welsh workforce and is even more important in rural areas, such as Dwyfor Meirionnydd, where hospitality provides 27.3% of employment. Today’s statement provided no new money and no clarity for struggling hospitality businesses that need to be able to make informed decisions in the coming months. Will the Chancellor therefore confirm that there will be no further announcements of extra funding prior to the March Budget?

[Rishi Sunak]

The Welsh Government have received over £5 billion of up-front funding guarantees to support their local economy. I hope they will use it to do exactly that, but also, Welsh businesses will benefit from UK-wide interventions—for example, our furlough scheme, our loan programme or, indeed, some of the VAT reductions—and I have said that all our support now extends through to the spring. We will have a Budget on 3 March, where we will set out the next stage of that economic response to coronavirus.